The Heart of a Ninja
by mentallynarutarded
Summary: I woke up to one of my many fears- silence. When the sunlight slid through the window and pried my eyes open, I found myself staring across the room at the bed where my best friend should've been sleeping. I was alone.
1. Final

**This is basically the main Naruto story with one major difference- this version of the story has ****_four_****-man squads in front of three, and all new members are completely new characters. (One of which is the main narrator of the story) It might seem like you've seen all this before, but I promise I ****_will_**** get original! I only posted the prologue and chapter one to see what you guys thought... I hope you like it! (:**

Prologue

Twelve years ago, as the legend is told, among thick woods that stretched on for miles, a Nine-Tailed Fox appeared. It was so tall that it could smash a cloud in with the swing of a tail; so strong and cruel that it could crush a nation in the blink of an eye.

And, nestled in that forest, hidden from the rest of the world, was a village which the demon had found. In a fit of rage it cried and shrieked, dashing around and leaving destruction in its trail.

A band of Ninja from the Village rose up to protect their home, but none were strong enough and were inevitably lost in the beast's anger. Hundreds were killed within the hour, and tears of survivors streaked across the floor.

Now I, personally, don't believe in legends. Especially not impossible ones, ones about phenomena that only happen in books or dreams. One Ninja, they said, was strong enough to kill that demon, but lost his life doing it. That Ninja was known as the Fourth Hokage, a hero.

I don't believe in heroes, either.

If heroes were real, I would've been saved twelve years ago on that very night, my birthday.

But no one wanted to save me. No one ever cared enough to try.

** Part One**

**Demons**

Chapter 1  
Final

CHIASA

I woke up to one of my many fears- silence. When the sunlight slid through the window and pried my eyes open, I found myself staring across the room at the bed where my best friend should've been sleeping.

I was alone.

Heart thundering, I scrambled to free myself from the clutches of my covers. _Why would he do this to me? _I thought, finally able to heave my sleeping bag off of me. _And so late in the year, too…_

I often told the day by how I woke up. Some days, if I was lucky, he'd already be awake and the sound of him rustling around in the kitchen would wake me. Those were the good days. The rare ones. Then there were the normal days, where I'd wake up to his snoring and have to drag him out of bed and all the way to school. He wasn't one to go on his own, and when I managed to get him there he'd usually just leave in the middle.

Then there were days like today: the _worst _kind of days.

After rolling out of the disgustingly ancient bed mat, I forced myself up to a stand and cringed as my feet slammed against the cold, hard, wooden floor. I could practically feel the entire, run-down apartment smiling at me, teasing at me.

_Well, good morning, Chiasa. _I chuckled darkly and grimaced at the chipped, white walls of my pathetic excuse for a bedroom. Another day in paradise.

The floor boards groaned in protest as I ran up to our one window, and it was all I had not to sneeze when the dust that flew up as the boards squeaked down made its way up my nose.

I had to stand on the tips of my toes to see out of the cracked piece of glass in the wall, and even then if I really wanted to see I had to jump.

It was times like this when I really wished that I could make it to five foot.

The full light of Konoha was blinding, and at first I had to squint. When everything cleared up, I was shocked to see everything running in perfect function.

It was funny, but not a single one of their faces was disturbed, angry, annoyed, or shocked. They were all just walking around, saying their "good mornings" and making their nauseating small talk. The buildings stood, unscathed in their colorful juxtaposition above the villagers making small talk below.

_Could Naruto have…? _I shook my head, answering my own question. _No, he's not one to do something out of character… _Someone gasped from the streets. My eyes snapped to the pedestrian- someone I didn't recognize- and his face was horror-stricken.

I tensed. It looked like I had found Naruto.

I followed his gaze up towards the sky, and nearly fainted at what I saw. Towering above, in the center of the Village Hidden in the Leaves was a wide plateau of maybe six thousand feet, so monumental that _I_ didn't even have to jump to see it.

Carved on that giant plateau were four god-like faces. The Hokage, our village leaders, were the strongest Ninja of their time. They were each worshiped to the point of nauseating idolism, and they were viewed as heroes. It was pathetic.

Only the Third remained alive, and he still lead us. He was a perverted old man who has long since passed retiring age, hailed, obviously, as though he was our creator.

All over his rock-hard face, and plastered over those of his predecessors, was paint. They had glasses, boogers, swirls on their cheeks, bloody noses, you name it. There was even a game of tic-tac-toe going on the Second Hokage's forehead. Heading away from them from not too far away was a roaring laughter, a sound that I knew better than my own voice.

"This is it you little bastard!" Someone screamed after it. "I don't care how old you are, or what the Hokage says! This is the last straw!" It was just a Chunin, one of the Hokage's minions. They said that every time Naruto did something like this. Nothing ever happened, yet I still almost killed over.

Naruto laughed harder and I struggled to find him soaring thirty feet up through the air. Sure enough, there he was, paint bucket in hand, orange jumpsuit tied around his waist. His neon yellow afro of spikes was more radiant then the sun. I groaned and glared at him in all his nonchalance.

"Do you know what you are?!" He called after the Chunin in his high pitched voice, "_Jealous! _You _wish _you had the balls to do that, you dumb _bitch!_" I suffocated a laugh and stared at him. I met his deep blue eyes for just a second as he was approaching the ground, and he winked at me. I tried my best to scowl at him- it was hard to do to Naruto- but it was too late. He was already focusing on landing.

_Iruka Sensei will be catching him soon, _I reminded myself. _You don't want to be late to the academy. _So I turned away from the window, knowing that I had about five minutes to get ready.

"Naruto!" Iruka Sensei, a man in his early twenties who for some reason chose teaching as his profession, screamed. I was sitting at my desk, right up front, being the closest seat to where Naruto now sat: all tied up on the floor. Iruka Sensei's shout had woken me from one of my usual daydreams, startling me and sending the all-too-familiar flood of adrenaline straight through me. I was suddenly at the edge of my seat, praying that he would calm down before Naruto got hurt. His empty chair was beside me, and the creeping sensation of solitude was nearly suffocating.

He was struggling to free himself pointlessly, as though he had the strength. The sad thing was, if it were anyone else in the entire classroom I'd be just like the others; bored, zoning out, waiting for Iruka Sensei's lecture to start.

"What the hell are you _thinking? _You failed the last graduation test, and the one before that. This is no time for practical jokes, dumbass! Your last chance is tomorrow!" I cringed at the way he yelled at him.

In the Ninja academy, we had three final exams. In order to graduate, you needed to pass at least one of them, but any major slip up during any exam and you were disqualified. Naruto hadn't passed a single one, and tomorrow was his last shot at being a Ninja. I couldn't bear to imagine what would happen if either of us failed.

The day that we became Ninja was something we both had been dreaming about our whole lives. The day that we could walk around the Village and be seen as something more than two hated orphans…

"_Are you even listening to me?!_" He roared, baring his teeth. I jumped again, having drifted into another trance. Naruto jutted out his lower lip into a pout, looked the other way, and grunted indifferently.

By this point, Iruka Sensei's patience was shot to hell.

"_That's it!_" He bellowed. "Everyone's having a re-test on the Transformation Jutsu, even if they passed the first time!" Now the entire class was groaning, most of them even glaring at Naruto on the shiny beige wooden floor. My heart was sent on another automatic frenzy. Jutsu were special techniques that Ninjas used, allowing them to do superhuman things. They were what set us apart from normal people. Everyone in the class thought of a Jutsu as walking; something that you're not born knowing, but something that becomes as easy as breathing once mastered.

Everyone except me.

"And you can thank Naruto!"

"Sakura Haruno!" Iruka Sensei called off of his clip board. I was leaning on one of the off-white desks, one of the ones that was closest to the front of the room. They were all two-seaters, and each row was a little higher than the one in front to set them back on an inclination. They were all pretty spaced out from each other too, making the classroom look bigger than my entire house.

A girl in a sleeveless maroon dress and apple-green eyes stepped forward, a smile glowing on her face. Sakura was one of those girls who really needed to get her priorities straight. There was a bow that matched her dress tying up her long, surprisingly naturally light pink hair. She put it there to draw attention away from her slightly oversized forehead, and she cared so much about what other people thought of her that she never bothered to put any work into being a Kunoichi. (A female Ninja.)

"Here I go!" She squeaked as I stared at her back. I noticed her pale elbows jutting out to each side, meaning that she was weaving the hand seal to perform the Jutsu. "Transform!" Right on cue, a mist started at the soles of her traditional navy blue sandals. In less than a second, it thickened into a steamy fog and hid her from the rest of the class, and had covered her all the way up to the tip of her bow in no time at all.

Just as quickly as it came, it cleared and a clone of Iruka Sensei emerged from it. Instead of pink hair, it was pulled back into a spiky dark brown pony tail. Every aspect of his clothing was perfect, from the giant red swirl on the back of his high-collard vest to his baggy blue-grey sweat pants and the long sleeved undershirt to match them. She even had the navy blue clothed metal plate that every Leaf Ninja had tied around their forehead, more commonly called a headband.

Though probably useless in battle, Sakura might've been the smartest person in the entire class.

Iruka Sensei was marking something down on his clip board, and there was a warm smile across his face.

"Transformation into me, perfect…" he mumbled, nodding for her to transform back into herself. She broke the hand seal and wove a different one, resummoning the fog.

"Alright, I did it!" She squealed, jumping up and down after it cleared and released her. After she had finished gloating, she turned and stared at the boy next to me and a light blush ran beneath the skin of her cheeks.

"Did you see that, Sasuke?!" Without turning my head, I tried to see him in my peripheral vision. He acted as though she hadn't said a thing, like she wasn't even there. His jet black eyes stared past her, at Iruka Sensei. He was waiting for him to say his name. After a second or too, Sakura moved to the end of the line, rejected but not beaten down.

I let my eyes slide over completely, to see him.

He was tall, five foot three, maybe. He had about five inches on me, but the complete and total intimidation of his features made it seem like a foot. I was the second shortest kid in our class, beating Naruto by half an inch. I wondered how pathetic I must've looked standing next to him.

His eyes were bold in contrast with his pale skin, almost as pale as mine, and they were so dark that they even made his spiky black hair look light enough to have a bluish tint, bolding his eyes further as his top and side bangs framed his face.

Sasuke was the silent type. If it weren't for the circle of girls that constantly swarmed and screamed around him, you probably wouldn't be able to tell that he was there. I tried to keep my distance from them.

"Sasuke Uchiha!" I could see his head turn slightly, he was ready to meet my eyes. Quickly, before he could see, I shifted my glance away and started thanking whoever was out there for my reflexes. Staring at Sasuke Uchiha was not something that I typically did, nor something that I ever wanted to get caught doing.

As he stepped forward with his arrogantly nonchalant scowl permanently etched on his face, I noticed a symbol on the back of his royal blue shirt. It was white on the bottom and red on the top, but it had a weird shape, almost like a lantern. It was probably a family crest, but it seemed familiar to me somehow…

"Hey, Chiasa." Someone whispered. I tensed again, feeling a small but powerful blast of adrenaline shoot through me. I looked around frantically, then met the eyes of the _other _boy standing next to me. I looked down ever so slightly into his ocean blue eyes and smiling face. I don't know what it was, be it his whiskers sticking out from his nose or his neon yellow hair being held up by giant green goggles into an insane, spiky afro. Maybe it was his bright orange jumpsuit with the raised white collar or the royal blue shoulders, or that permanent, adventurous smile that I couldn't _not _smile back at. Be it the way he _looked _or just _him, _I was just… not angry at all anymore.

"_Chiasa!" _He whispered again, getting frustrated. "_Snap out of it!_" I wasn't daydreaming anymore, but I refused to look at him. I was mad before for a reason, so I used any willpower that he hadn't killed to try and ignore him. "_Chi-_"

"What do you _want?!" _I snapped, keeping my voice low and giving in. I barely even looked at him, but I could already see his eyes going all wide and innocent.

_I just wanted to apologize…_ He thought. I was almost completely turned towards him now, and his whole gaze just dropped to the floor.

Ever since I was about nine years old, I could read minds. There were Jutsu far more complex then the Transformation, but I only knew one, called the "Mind Possession." I came up with it myself.

Other than that, however, I was probably more useless than Sakura.

When it was fully activated I could do a lot more than hear thoughts, but ever since I mastered it I could hear every thought within a ten-meter radius. It was like being in a busy hall full of people, so that even when it was silent it wasn't totally _silent. _At least not to me.

"Bullshit." I whispered back. At the word, his smile was back. He was even shaking a little, laughing like he was an hour ago, shooting through the sky. Only quieter.

And, because I couldn't help it, I started smiling too. I felt the pure hearted laughter shoot up my throat, and I could feel the taste of happiness- sweet and a stranger- spread through me.

Naruto was the only one who could do that.

Our brief moment of apology-and-forgiveness was interrupted by a kind of blast of wind that came from ahead. We both looked forward and saw that Sasuke had already returned back to his normal self and was walking towards the back of the line.

Sakura may have been the smartest, but Sasuke was by far the most skilled. He never even said "transform."

Iruka Sensei had lost his smile, and was a little dumbstruck at what he had just witnessed. My heart skipped a beat as he mumbled something unintelligible, and I gulped, knowing what this meant.

"Chiasa Uzumaki!" Iruka Sensei called, meeting my petrified light brown eyes.

I took a shaky step forward with my sandal like Sakura's, in front of the other fifteen children. They were all staring at _me _now. _I _was the center of attention. My palms got sweaty and I could gradually hear my own breathing.

Iruka Sensei's smile was more forced now than it was for the others, but at least for me he tried. That was a lot more than most other people could muster up for me. _Maybe he _does _have a heart… _I thought sarcastically.

I pulled my hands in front of my white and navy blue horizontally stripped shirt and looked down to see my body for what was hopefully not the last time. _You're not going to die. _I reminded myself, trying to be calm. _You've done this plenty of times before. _My head started throbbing.

Slowly, I weaved "tiger," the simplest hand seal.

"T-transform!" I felt the Chakra immediately respond, swirling around my body at ten times its normal speed. Maybe it was what kept my heart going, or maybe my heart stopped a long time ago.

At this point, the pain was so strong that I couldn't be sure of anything.

The fog began to erupt like the tremors going throughout me, and I watched as my upper-back length light brown curls began to shrink and turn darker.

That was the painless part.

Have you ever had your bones stretched out an entire foot? It feels like someone's ripping them all out of their sockets. At the same time. Hard. The worst is having to go through that with a straight face. If I wince, he'll take points off.

No one _else _had this problem. I've heard it in their heads. Not even Naruto; it was just me. Then again, being a thirty five pound twelve year old girl of barely four foot nine had its problems.

No stamina was one of them.

After what felt like an eternity, the fog cleared. I was seeing eye to eye with him, trying to represent his friendly disposition as the pain inside of me twinged and sizzled away.

My blouse and tight, dark blue denim pants had become Iruka Sensei's clothes. I could feel the red swirl on my back, the very same one that was on my own shirt.

I had done it.

"Good." He nodded. I groaned internally. If growing was bad, shrinking was a hundred times worse.

I switched to the bird symbol, and looked forward as the fog encased me again. When I knew I was hidden, I closed my eyes and gritted my teeth, balling my hands up into fists and squeezing.

_This _felt like my bones were crunching up against each other, and every time I moved ten thousand needles were stabbed into the body part that was trying to escape.

I had to sit here and be tortured as the pain ate away at me. I was drowning in it, fighting for air, swimming to reach the surface from the bottom of the abyss. By the time the fog cleared and I had to act like nothing happened, I crossed my arms just for the pleasure of clutching something.

Like a ghost, I started drifting across the line of towering kids, almost all giving me that glare. They did it every day. They were wishing me dead, cursing me out, planning ways to give me hell. All that, added in with the physical pain.

Just another day in the life.

Tears were barely forming at the base of my eyes as I resumed my place next to Sasuke. I could feel him tense up, acknowledging my presence. I didn't hate Sasuke like I hated most of them, because he didn't hate me.

"Naruto Uzumaki!" As I was biting my lip to hold in a burning scream, I looked up at the sound of my own last name.

It was weird to think that Naruto and I were from the same clan. Since neither of us knew anything about ourselves, not who our parents were or how they died or if any _other _Uzumaki was still living, we just assumed that we were distant cousins or something. That was probably why the Third Hokage gave us the same house to live in.

Naruto Uzumaki stepped forward, glowering at Iruka Sensei with his hands on his hips.

"This is all your fault…" A boy mumbled, probably standing next to him. I recognized his voice as Shikamaru Nara's, the laziest person in the world.

"Like I care." Naruto didn't even look back at him. He was smiling a different smile now, another one that I knew.

My heart started pounding for what must've been the tenth time today. It was sad that I couldn't call that a record. That smile was the smile that could scare me from a hundred miles away. That smile could destroy an entire Hidden Village. I was surprised that it hadn't yet.

Naruto was about to do something very stupid.

Iruka Sensei, who knew the smile just as well as I did, became extremely nervous. Not my level of nervous of course, but nervous enough to stop him.

The only problem was, he was a second too late.

I was aware of maybe three things before it happened. The first was Hinata Hyuga, a shy girl almost as small as me who's thoughts often revolved around Naruto, blushing and staring at him. I could barely make out her breathy, soft spoken thoughts among the rest.

_Good luck, Naruto… _She thought, pushing her pointer fingers together again and again.

The second was the final stage of my little nervous breakdown, where my heartbeat literally _stopped_. My lips probably turned as white as my skin, and I couldn't feel anything but my teeth chattering.

_Why, Naruto? Just _why?

The last thing was my hair blowing out behind my shoulders, pushed by the wind of a transformation.

I never even heard him yell "Transform!"

Blue Chakra surrounded him, making a spherical cage around his body. He was using too much! Nevertheless, fog surrounded him, but it was thinner than the rest of our fog. So thin that you could see a shadowy figure of the person he was transforming into.

It definitely wasn't Iruka Sensei, I can tell you that much.

When the fog cleared, it didn't calm my nerves. It only made things worse. _Much _worse.

My heart was going again, believe it. I wasn't even scared anymore, but you'd never see me so mad, embarrassed, or shocked. I felt like crawling into a hole and dying.

There, for all to see, was a naked woman in Naruto's place. That's not even the worst part. She looked exactly like a tanner, older, blonder version of me with longer straight hair and blue eyes. She had Naruto's whiskers, but it wasn't very hard to see passed them. She wasn't skin and bones like me, either. She was beautiful… and I wanted to throw up.

I swear my jaw hit the floor. I could feel my face glowing a vibrant red, it was so hot that I thought I was going to pass out from heat stroke or hyperventilate or something.

All the attention was on me again. Roars of laughter split my ear drums into two, and I felt faint. Naruto was only encouraged, because he thought they were laughing at _him_, not me. So what did he do?

Wink and blow Iruka Sensei a kiss, of course.

Blood shot out of Iruka Sensei's nose and he fell back as though someone had knocked him out.

"Oh, Naruto…" I groaned, covering my face. Hot tears slid down my cheeks. I hoped that no one was still looking. I felt the gust of wind go again and brush past my hands. Stupidly, I peeked through my fingers.

The real Naruto- fully dressed- was pointing at Iruka Sensei and dying of laughter. Everyone in the entire class was hysterical- everyone except me and Iruka Sensei.

"_NARUTO!" _He roared, quickly getting to his feet. "_YOU IDIOT!"_

"Did you like that, Iruka Sensei?" He was still chuckling, holding his stomach with one hand."I call it the _Sexy _Jutsu." Before I knew it and for the first time ever, I was running out of school right in the middle of the morning, charging for the door and not looking back.

Nobody stopped me.

NARUTO

When you have a teacher _this _stupid, you tend to want to drive them insane. I know I did. In return, he decided to get revenge.

So here I was, standing on a platform hanging up five thousand feet in the air, scrubbing a rock until paint got underneath my fingernails. Isn't that a fun way to spend a Thursday evening? To make things even better, Iruka Sensei was sitting over me on the First Hokage's headband as I scrubbed the holy cheek or whatever.

Birds were still chirping in the distance, giving me something to concentrate on rather than the sun that was beating down on my neck.

Iruka Sensei was watching me like a hawk, glaring at me with that God awful look in his eyes. His arms were crossed, and he looked down at me like I was some random piece of shit. It just left the best taste in my mouth, let me tell you.

"You're not going home until all of this is clean!" He yelled for the tenth time. I almost laughed. That wasn't exactly the best motivation. I glowered up at him and tried to match his level of hatred as I spat the words that flew out of my mouth.

"I don't _care_!" I roared. "It's not like there's anyone home waiting for me!" Chiasa was probably off in the woods. That's where she always went when she was upset. It wasn't very hard to find forest around here, considering the fact that this Village was in the middle of the woods.

I'd be alone when I got home, thanks to Iruka Sensei's stupid re-test. I looked away from him and went back to my scrub-sulking.

Suddenly, I didn't feel an intense glare pounding down on my head anymore. I ignored him, hoping that he had decided to leave me alone.

I was wrong, of course.

"Naruto…" He said, more gently. I looked back up at him, this time more annoyed then angry.

"What do you want _this _time?" He stared thoughtfully into the distance for a second, pondering what to say to that. He didn't look like he was going to scream at me, so I didn't reuse the Sexy Jutsu. Not yet.

"What I meant was…" He was silent, still thinking.

"Spit it out already!" This was just another form of torture. I was sure of it. He wanted me to stand out here all night so that I'd be exhausted and fail the Final Exam tomorrow. I wouldn't become a Ninja if _he _had anything to say about it.

"If you clean this up, I'll buy you Ramen when you're done."

It doesn't take much to make my day. That was one of the many magical phrases that could do it.

"YES!" I felt like thrusting my fist into the air or jumping up and down or running around the entire leaf village. But that would involve falling almost a mile, so instead I started bathing the first Hokage. "Why didn't you just say that in the first place?! Give me an hour, believe it!" I added my signature catchphrase at the end for emphasis.

I don't care what anyone else thinks, the best thing in the world is hot, freshly made Ichiraku Ramen.

The Ichiraku Ramen stand, on the side of the main road, was probably my favorite place in the world. The owner and his daughter were probably two of the few people in the Village who didn't hate me. Well, I suppose the only two, besides Chiasa.

So there I sat, chugging down my third bowl of noodles happily, wondering if they came from heaven itself. I made a mental note to vandalize things more often.

Iruka Sensei sat next to me, not eating his own bowl. I silently wondered what was wrong with him, but then I remembered that he was paying for this, so I figured I owed it to him to stop mentally insulting him for the night.

"Why'd you do it, Naruto?" He was scrutinizing my face and hunching over to see eye-to-eye with me. "I mean… don't you know who the Hokage _are_?" What kind of a question was _that_? I was _born _knowing. After I devoured the steamy chicken broth and let it calm my nerves a little bit, I turned- reluctantly- away from my ramen and towards Iruka Sensei.

"Of course I do! They were the best Ninja of their time, right? Especially the Forth Hokage… the strongest of them all." I pictured the carving of his face in my mind. He had always looked… bolder than the rest. To me, at least. "He died saving the Village from the nine tailed fox." The look he gave me told me that that didn't clear up anything at all.

"Then… why?" He asked, still puzzled. I sighed, trying to keep my cool because I owed that to him.

"Because I'm going to be Hokage one day." He didn't see that one coming. He paused and stared at me mid-noodle slurp. I took my chopsticks in my hand and pointed at him, winking like I did earlier. Okay, maybe this time it was less flirtatious, but still. "And I'm going to be a better Hokage then anyone else! That way, everyone will finally acknowledge me. They won't look at me or Chiasa like we're trash anymore. You'll see!" He cocked his head to the side, and after he swallowed his mouthful, he spoke.

"Chiasa? You being Hokage won't affect Chiasa." I smiled and stared into my empty bowl. The bottom reflected the dim light from the candle-lit room, like new.

"Chiasa believes that I can become Hokage." I said finally, picturing her frail, tired, overly worried face. "She's the only one who does… and I promised her; I said that I'd take her up there with me somehow, and I never go back on my word… because that's my Ninja way. Believe it!" I looked back at him, worried that I had said too much. He just didn't say anything for a while, so we sat in silence and let my words sink in. It felt like they were echoing somehow, flowing up with the steam of boiling noodles, lingering with the candles' flame. Then I remembered that I wanted to ask him something.

"Hey Sensei… I have a favor to ask." I eyed the Leaf Symbol engraved in his headband.

"You want another bowl?" I was liking him more and more. I wasn't one to turn down a bowl of ramen, believe it, but still, his headband was so drawing…

"No… I was wondering… Could I try on your headband? Just for a little?" I smiled at him as wide as I could, so wide that it squinted my eyes shut. I even clapped my palms together for the full effect.

"Oh, this?" He chuckled, grabbing the shiny metal plate. "This is for Ninjas. When you graduate from the academy tomorrow, you can wear one." Ouch, rejected. I folded my arms and looked away. _And I was just starting to like him…_

"You're so mean!" I shouted. He started laughing. The people in the kitchen were starting to stare at us. Ichiraku was a bar with five seats, so we were the only ones in there. No one else was there to listen.

"Is that why you took your goggles off?" My hair was handing loose now, down draping in front of my forehead. He was right, it _was _why I had taken the goggles off…

But then of course, there's always a plan B.

"One more bowl, please!"

CHIASA

Do you ever have those days where you just can't win?

Yeah, welcome to my life.

I was glad that I knew the woods like the back of my hand, otherwise I would've gotten totally lost. The woods used to be my safe haven, my shelter from the rest of the world.

I had lived here, for a time.

After a while of walking, trudging along, the sun was setting. I knew that I'd really be lost if I didn't stop and rest until dawn or turn around, and God knew that I couldn't go back _there _for a while.

And it was just in time, too. I had just come across my favorite clearing in the entire woods, surrounded by all of the other forest trees. There was a stream running through it that made a peaceful, babbling noise, surrounded by only grass and violet and yellow wildflowers.

It was absolutely perfect, like it was made for me. This was my real home, this was where I'd always be safe. It was perfectly ten meters all the way around, so if anyone was coming close to me, I'd hear them in my mind. If I was out of Chakra for some reason, I had the strongest ears in the entire Leaf Village. I could probably hear them from a mile away.

The grass was greener here, the water was cleaner. Throughout the day you could hear the songbirds chirping, sculpting each other's melody and flowing into a perfect harmony, evolving into a symphony by noon time. At night the frogs croaked and the crickets rubbed their wings, composing a lullaby that always put me right to sleep.

And, about half way between the rest of the forest and the stream, stood a tall oak tree, alone. Not a soul grew near it besides the grass at its roots, but it never did greave. I remember hiding up in its branches, surrounded by its thick leaves ten feet off the ground. I'd rest there when I needed shade, either closing my eyes or staring at the creatures in the surrounding thicket.

This was no normal oak tree.

In the fall, the leaves turned brilliant shades of orange, auburn, and brown, and they cascaded down to the forest floor, decorating the surface and adding flavor to the already natural beauty. Sometimes I'd lay there and wait for them, waiting to let them bury me. I'd close my eyes and, for a very short time, be totally and completely happy.

Fall was a time of bliss.

In the winter, I'd run into the woods at night and huddle up in a not so windy place. It never got too cold here, as we were quite south and it hardly ever snowed, so I could return to the tree and the clearing by day time, cry every time I saw the lifeless tree stand there, pray that it would make it 'till spring.

Winter was a time of survival.

In the spring, the wild flowers would sprout and I'd watch as the whole world slowly began to blossom to life again. The oak tree grew brilliant white flowers on its branches that were easily blown off by the wind and sent towards the water. As they lightly grazed the creek, they drifted along, moving on with their lives, breaking off from the place of their birth. Though the flowers left often, I'd feel less lonely then I did in the winter, as the all of the animals started to come back with me. I could be one with them, one with the world in spring.

Spring was a time of redemption and unison.

Finally, there came summer. Of all of the seasons, summer was my favorite. Everything was the most alive, the colors were the most vibrant. All of the forest smells, they all smelt the sweetest… I could feel happiness here too, just like in the fall, but even warmer.

At least, I used to.

It's amazing how one scar can ruin the perfection of something forever. Just that one day, all those years ago…

The Kunai knife marks were still in the tree like a scar, not glazed over at all over time. I still got the adrenaline rush every time I looked at them.

Now this place served as a reminder for me, a reminder that nothing was perfect, and a reminder of that sunny summer day, already almost seven years ago…

I shivered at the thought of it, forcing it out of my mind. Still… it was amazing how even here, lying under a branch and peaking through the many leafs where the stars barely shone through, putting a twinkle in my lifeless eyes, I assumed…

Even here, I could still be unsafe. I was glad that my weak Chakra even had the strength to help me jump as high as ten feet… but I felt that even if I could jump a mile up, I could still be shot down. I remember wishing for freedom, all those years ago, wishing that I could fly away from here, my perfect world… fly not to escape, but just to be free.

I would be forever caged.

I turned over and sighed, knowing that it was no use staying here. As I managed to sit up on the branch, a tear rolled down my cheek. I hadn't been here since the day he was killed.

I was vaguely aware of the soft _thud _my feet made as they touched the ground. I was about to turn back towards the village when something caught my eye. It was bright and small, like a star hovering just above the ground. I turned to get a better look at it, and gasped at what I saw. It was a bright white light, flashing on and off.

_A firefly! _I realized, taking an involuntary step back. I wasn't one to go towards a bug on my own, but it was so radiant and beautiful that… I started walking towards it. _What's the worst that could happen? _A voice in the back of my mind said.

I was in a strange trance, one where I was subtly aware of what was happening but couldn't do anything about it. I was walking forward towards the light hovering above the stream. The air was hot, humid as I walked. It caressed my face as I blew by.

When I got right up to the edge I stopped and looked down, noticing my own reflection in the water. I stared down at myself, looking at my illuminated features.

My thick, half up half down brown ringlets lay casually across my shoulders, curling the most around the edges of my face. In my ears were two incredibly small golden hoop earrings that brought out the golden tint in my eyes. When I started to look into the gold-brown balls, I couldn't stop.

They were dead. Completely lifeless. That was emphasized even more by the bags underneath them and the creases in my face. Somewhere deep inside their corpses lay something, maybe a spark of fear as a thin layering between the surface layer of death and the core of completely agonizing pain.

When the moon uncovered itself from a cloud and shone on the lake, I gasped and realized what I had been doing. I looked up and tried to tell the time from the moon's position in the sky. _Oh no… _Tomorrow was the final exam, and it was already midnight.

I would have enough trouble producing a clone if I was _awake_.

Clone Jutsu. It used to hurt more than Transformation Jutsu, but now it was painless. I had practiced it so many times… perfected it over and over again, until it finally didn't hurt anymore.

Now I was going to be tested on it.

A lot of things happened that day, from the very second I walked in the door. I got back around one thirty, and Naruto was already asleep. He was in the kitchen this morning, and I woke up to the sound of Ramen being cooked.

Today should've been a good day.

However, there was a kid in my class who seemed to hate me more than any of the rest of them. His name was Hibachi, and his life's goal was to ruin mine. He wasn't that big in comparison with everyone else; he wasn't even five feet tall, but he was still taller and _much _stronger than me.

After school, Hibachi was planning on attacking me with his three wimpy best friends. That meant that after the last person took the final exam, I had less than one minute to run. I was already shaking just thinking about it.

He was eyeing me from across the room like I was a fresh piece of meat. _Look forward, Chiasa. Pretend like he isn't even there. _

Naruto was sitting next to me, and I could feel his worried gaze on my face as I shifted uncomfortably in my chair.

"Are you nervous?" He asked, scrunching his eyebrows together. If I was nervous, he'd get nervous. I hoped that he didn't see me as some fearless person that only got scared when she really had too, because I was scared of my own freaking shadow, and he should know that by now.

"No." I lied. He didn't buy it, but instead of getting scared himself, he smiled at me, like he usually did.

"Listen Chiasa, you're going to pass this easier than anyone and be number one rookie, believe it!" Maybe, had I not still been completely furious about yesterday, I would've thanked him for having so much confidence in me. Instead, I said:

"I'd tell you the same, but you're probably going to be too busy indirectly calling me a _slut_, asshole." And I didn't meet his eyes. That left a really rotten taste in my mouth, so much that I wanted to take it back right after I said it. I stole a glance at Naruto to see if I'd hurt him, and at first it didn't look like I had. After he stared down at the desk, looking confused, he looked like he got it.

"Fine, the next time you're having a nervous breakdown, don't come crying to me." I deserved that, but it still hit me like a punch in the gut. I gulped and looked forward. I didn't even have enough sanity left- or enough emotional strength- to tell him that I was sorry before Iruka Sensei stood up in front of the class and began reading from the sheet of paper given to him by the village.

"We will now begin the third and final Academy Exam!" He said from his little podium that he used to lecture us from. "When your name is called, proceed to the next classroom. The final exam will be on Clone Jutsu." I could practically feel Naruto tearing out his own hair. Clone Jutsu was his absolute worst, and he obviously didn't pay enough attention to know that that's what we were being tested on.

_You can do this, Naruto_. I wanted to whisper. _Believe it._ That would've made him laugh. But because I was biting down on my bottom teeth so hard, I didn't say a word and forced myself to slip into another daydream.

"Uzumaki, Chiasa!" Eventually, if I never got used to waking up so abruptly, I'd give myself a heart attack. I stole one last, sideways glance at Naruto before walking into the room that would change my life forever. He didn't look at me, he only nodded.

_You have time to make amends later. _I reminded myself. This was no time to get sidetracked.

All eyes were on me one last time as I ghosted across the floor and over to the door connecting to a consecutive classroom. Iruka Sensei was waiting by the door, holding it open for me.

For some reason, he had no trouble smiling today.

My heart thudded against my chest, reminding me that it was still there. I clenched my fists, trying to unsuccessfully ease the tension poisoning the chilled blood that pulsed through my veins.

The next room was plain, and much smaller than our normal classroom. It's walls were white with brown wooded planks running down the sides, and there was a wide open space in the middle of the floor that Iruka Sensei led me to. After he made sure that I was steady and on my feet, he went to go sit down at one of the two tables that was pushed all the way against the wall. There was a man already at the table with him, another teacher that I recognized. I thought his name was Mizuki.

He was white haired and blue eyed, but his wide, bulgy forehead and narrow face and chin made him look like an alien. His smile was so innocent and friendly as he stared at me, waiting for me to perform my Jutsu, that I wanted to throw up.

_Well, isn't this great. _I thought, trying to get my arms to move so I could weave the hand seal. _Standing in the middle of a small room being watched by two idiotic Chunin, who'd judge my performance and alter the course of the rest of my life. _No pressure.

Steadily taking deep breaths, I put my hands together and let my Chakra flow throughout my body. Whether I liked it or not, this is what I was born to do. There was no getting around it.

"Clone Jutsu!" As I said the words and activated the rest of the Jutsu, I felt my Chakra accelerate once more. This sensation was entirely different. It felt like my insides were painlessly thinning, splitting apart into countless layers of pure energy.

Then, I became even weaker than before.

There was always that one moment in Clone Jutsu after you make the clones where you feel totally empty. Admittedly, I wasn't exactly "full" in perfect health, and being even emptier just knocked out a few senses.

As the clouds of smoke appeared _beside _me, I fell onto my knees and caught myself, spreading my palm out on the floor. I couldn't see anything, and everyone's thoughts just shut off.

_Keep breathing, _I told myself as the pain was wearing away. With one eye closed, I looked at Iruka and Mizuki Sensei. Mizuki was smiling his alien smile, but Iruka Sensei wasn't satisfied.

"I can't let you become a Ninja if you're going to cringe every time you perform a Jutsu, Chiasa." The world started spinning. Frantically, my eyes darted around the room, looking for something to help me. All that there was besides the three of us in the room were a few royal blue clothed headbands that lay on the other table.

Two of them were for the Uzumakis. They matched the color of the stripes on my shirt.

I couldn't lose _now. _Not after I had come so far, so close… I looked around at my clones, to see if they deserved his disapproving look.

They were prefect, every single one of them. And there were a _lot _of them, too.

I felt feverish.

"Iruka," Mizuki said in a pleading voice. "Look. She managed to make seven perfect copies- that's more than any other student! And even though the real body is weakened, the clones don't feel any pain. They could protect her until she got back on her feet." Iruka Sensei's disappointed face lightened a little bit as he considered this. He pursed his lips into a firm line, then he caved. Hope flickered inside of me like a candle, or something smaller than that. It gave me a little more power, enough to let me stand up.

_Please give me the headband… please… _He finally smiled and reached for it, and I had to keep myself from rushing towards him and grabbing it.

That was one of the happiest moments of my entire life, even though it meant that I had to repay Mizuki.

Maybe that was why, when I reached out my hand and Iruka Sensei gifted me with my milestone, enclosing my fingers around it, that I was expecting all of my problems to go away. I was expecting them to be scared of me, to run from me, to just fade along with every ounce of hatred I had.

Nothing even twitched.

The headband felt strange at first. The clothing felt like thin rope, and it was a lot heavier than you'd think. I had to make sure Iruka Sensei didn't see my hands tremble as I tried to hold it up, praying that he wouldn't take it right back.

It also didn't feel as amazing and holy as I'd thought it would. This was what every kid in the Leaf Village _dreamed _about. This was what _I'd _dreamed about. I'd always thought that at that moment, when I was officially a Genin, the first rank of Ninja, that I'd feel… stronger somehow. Yet here I was, holding it in my hands, weak as ever. In the end, it was just a piece of metal with an engraving that meant nothing to me.

"Thank you, Iruka Sensei." I said respectfully, not checking to see if he could see the disappointment in my eyes.

I could hear enough in his head.

I turned away in a daze, only vaguely aware of the soft thudding sounds of my sandals hitting the wood. I walked out of that classroom with my head bowed, eyes dark from the shadow of my forehead, lips trembling.

As always, I could feel the tears coming.

_Why am I so… weak? _I thought helplessly. Maybe if I was born stronger like Naruto, maybe then I wouldn't mind being hated. Maybe if I was born loved, like Sakura or Hibachi, I wouldn't mind being so weak.

My breathing caught wind and breath started rushing out of me in sudden gusts. If I was empty before, now I was just a shell full of nothingness.

I clutched my headband around the leaf symbol with all my strength. _If I can crush it… or even make a dent… _I thought, _then I can beat it… then there's a shred of strength in me somewhere…_

"Good job," Naruto said in a far away voice. It was colder than he was. Icy. I cringed and sucked in a giant breath, like I was trying not to scream. I looked down into my lap, letting my ringlets fall over my face and hide my teary eyes from him. If I was going to be weak, no one else was allowed to see. I could still feel his gaze as I tried to steady my breathing.

Something had broken between us, and I had never been so alone.

On top of my stretchy jeans lay my new headband, teasing me like my abandoned apartment. _Another day in paradise, _I thought again, _a whole life in paradise. _

Then I looked at it closer.

My heart sunk and my eyes flew wide open. I could feel all of the muscles in my back tense up. My hands, yet again, involuntarily clenched into fists.

There wasn't a wrinkle in the cloth. As for the plate…

Not even a fingerprint.

"Uzumaki, Naruto!" Was called just as Naruto watched tears fall from my eyes and make the smallest wet stains on the legs of my pants.


	2. Ninja

**Thanks for answering to my first chapter everyone, sorry if a lot of you didn't like it. ): Before I give up, I posted this chapter (which is mostly original material) to try and change some of your opinions. Please tell me what you think...!**

Chapter 2

Ninja

NARUTO

I didn't understand what I had done. I had tried to encourage her, and she shot me down flat. Yet, even though I was _so angry _at her, I couldn't shake the image of her crying from my head.

Chiasa cried a lot. She didn't usually like anybody else to see it, but it was pretty hard to miss. Usually, though, I could tell _why _she was crying.

She had just become a Ninja. That was her _dream_. So… why was she so upset?

"Naruto? _Naruto!_" Iruka Sensei's shouts broke my train of thought and reminded me where I was. I came back to reality with a start, knowing full well that what I was about to do would change my life forever.

I had to forget Chiasa for now.

_Alright, _I thought, clearing my head. _I can do this. _I took a deep breath and put my hands together, ready to send my energy on a wild frenzy.

"Clone Jutsu!" I yelled, and my energy responded. It swirled throughout my entire body and made a light blue spherical cage around me that looked like it was made of fire. My hair was blown back from the wind of the Jutsu, and I could feel that rush of adrenaline coursing through my veins. That was the best part.

Too soon, it stopped.

I looked at Iruka Sensei's face, not daring to glance at the clone beside me. My heart skipped a beat when I saw his eyebrow twitch and his face fall. When he sighed in frustration, my head started spinning.

Stupidly, I peeked at my own creation.

I wanted to hurl.

There, lying on the floor, was a… I don't even know what it was. It resembled me… sort of. It's skin was almost as white as Chiasa's chalkiness, its tongue fell out of its mouth because it looked like half of the muscles in its face didn't work, and it just lay there on the floor, like a big, unfortunate blob. When I saw that its jumpsuit was _pink_, I knew that I was hopeless.

After a few moments of dead silence, Iruka Sensei screamed the words that would end my entire life and goal of being Hokage forever.

"Disqualified! Absolutely not!"

I felt faint. For the first time in my entire life, I got the feeling that nobody would ever acknowledge me.

I felt a stabbing pain from somewhere, and realized that I had fallen on the floor. I looked up at Iruka Sensei and Mizuki Sensei, pleading with them from the bottom of my heart. What had I _become_?

"Iruka," someone said gently in the distance. I was pretty sure that it was Mizuki. "His physical coordination and stamina are better than almost all of the other student's. And look, he _did _manage to make something of a clone… Isn't that enough for him to pass?" My eyes widened instantly. I shot up and looked at Iruka Sensei, who seemed to be deliberating this, feeling a heavy weight be lifted off of me

"Mizuki Sensei," Iruka Sensei sighed, "all of the other students created at least three clones. Naruto only created one… and it's practically useless. I can't pass this, I'm sorry."

And my world came crashing down.

A thousand emotions were swirling around inside me, each giving me a different glimpse of my future as it went. Hatred, sadness, anger, defeat…

I started walking out to face the Ninja like a zombie, and I barely realized what I was doing.

CHIASA

Everything happened too fast.

One minute, I had finally calmed down and my head was up. I was waiting for Naruto to come out. When he _did _come out, however, I wanted him to go back inside.

He was empty handed.

He had _failed._

My jaw dropped and I tightened up. I was actually hyperventilating. There was no way I could be a Ninja without him! There was no way I could go on like this! Something had died inside of him. He wasn't the hyperactive Naruto that he had been yesterday. He walked slowly like the living dead, looking slightly and solemnly towards the floor.

He was just like me now; dead, yet somehow living.

Instead of my heart exploding in a rush of beats like usual, it shriveled up in pain. All of his dreams… his whole life… gone.

Half alive, he sat down next to me.

Then something occurred to me.

Was this… _my _fault? Had I been too cold to him? Would he have passed if I had just kept my mouth shut? Without thinking, I turned to apologize and tried to meet his eyes.

"Naruto, I-" But the look he gave me shut me up like I was a safe, and I didn't feel like I'd ever remember the combination.

That glare was burning in _his _eyes, the one pair of eyes that I never expected to see it in.

We got that glare a lot, the two of us.

Can you imagine someone hating you for being _alive_? You might have never said a word to them, you might be three years old, you might not even know their _names_, yet… they despised you with every inch of their body. Even if you were in a hall of two hundred people, every single one would hate you, and you'd still be completely alone.

And you were terrified. You wanted to disappear, go hide somewhere where no one would ever find you or glare at you again.

That's exactly how Naruto was looking at me.

Except… it wasn't _towards _me, it was towards something much bigger, something with much more power.

The next minute, Iruka Sensei came and refused to let me stay in stasis.

"If you've already been tested, you're dismissed. Don't forget to grab a Shuriken Holster on your way out if you don't already have one." I could _feel _Hibachi stand up from all the way across the room.

I glanced at Naruto and his pained face, then back at Hibachi, then back towards the door. The Shuriken Holsters were on a table easily within reach if I was running out of here.

_A pouch full of weapons… perfect. _I turned to Naruto one last time, refusing to look into his eyes.

Hibachi was coming closer, staring right at me, smiling.

"I'm sorry, Naruto!" I whispered quickly and turned away, pushing myself out of my seat and bolting to beat the crowd of kids that were about to clog the exit.

"Get after her!" Hibachi whispered to his friends, not thinking that I could hear him.

At least I was faster than them.

I was already catching my breath while I was running as I charged faster. I grabbed the thick strap of a dark blue Shuriken holster, and then I was out.

Frantically, I looked around the cramped wooden hallway for an escape. All I could see was door after classroom door, and there wasn't a gateway outside in sight.

Hibachi's thoughts were getting closer.

Without anywhere else to go, I tried to find a crowd of kids to blend into. Of course, with my luck, the people behind me were the only ones.

So, because the only thing that I could ever really do well was run, I thrusted myself down the hallway, trying to ignore the agonizing running cramps in my ribs. It was hard trying not to crash into anyone while looking over my shoulder to see if they were on my tail, but when the class turned the opposite way that I had, and Hibachi and his three goons emerged from the rest, I can honestly say that I didn't care anymore. I stopped looking at them and focused on keeping my breathing even, at least until I got back to my house.

My speeding heart skipped a beat.

Did I really want to lead them towards _Naruto_?

So instead I- after a lot of turns and cramps - found the back door and escaped down a light dirt path that would lead me to the main road. There would be plenty of people filling the streets in high noon, but I knew better then to think that they'd help me. I could be screaming at the top of my lungs, flailing my arms down that street being chased by a blood-thirsty killer, and not one of them would even turn their heads.

Now, my instincts were typically pretty spot on, and I usually listened to them. Right now, they were telling me to find safety, like they always did when I was in danger.

Because I couldn't just stand there and decide where to go, I ran and thought at the same time.

Home was safe enough, but I had already ruled that out. The only other place in the world that was safe at all was the forest, but I couldn't go to my clearing because it was in the other direction.

All this was shooting through my head while Naruto stayed in the background, that glare burning in his face.

In the back of my mind though, even with everything else going on, I already had a plan. On the main road, if you kept going in either direction, eventually you'd hit forest. I remembered that there was a large group of trees right next to the Uchiha Village, and if I could just manage to disappear into them for a while, they'd never find me.

The problem, however, was coming up with the energy to run that far.

When I hit the dirt street, I looked over my shoulder again.

They were gaining on me.

Impossibly, I managed to pull energy from somewhere and ran even faster. By the time I was blurring by the ignorant pedestrians, my whole body was practically on fire, but I kept pushing past building after building.

Eventually, I was getting dizzy. If I passed out, it would all be over. So instead, I did the dumbest thing I could possibly do.

I turned the corner and ran into a dead-ended alleyway. The cracked, red brick wall all the way at the end that I slammed my palms into was caked in dust, but I pushed on it with all of my strength as though it would move.

I was shaking like there was some inner earthquake exploding inside of me. I wanted to scream, but the relief of standing still was so comforting that it distracted me from my cravings.

I closed my eyes. Each deep breath was beginning to feel like a knife being shoved down my throat, but I took as much air as I could.

For all I knew, my breaths were numbered.

"Need a breather, Uzumaki?" A voice came from the end of the alley. When I opened my eyes and spun around, I saw him. He was standing there with that stupid smug grin tattooed on his face, proud that he had won. The light from behind him was almost blinding, and it was so bright that all I could see were four silhouettes.

"J-Jerk," I spat, wheezing so loudly that I was barely intelligible. He laughed his snobby, uptight laugh and took a step forward. His bitches followed him. As he walked into the darkness, I could make out his features better.

Everything about him was just totally disgusting. From his baggy, barf-yellow sweater to the purple beanie on his head that squished his sweaty brown hair to his face, he made me want to throw up.

"Why do you have to be so mean, Chiasa? We're all friends here." He said as he clenched his hands into fists. At that I actually laughed, humorlessly of course. His sneer grew impossibly wider, and that killed my dark smile in a second.

"Get away from me." I was trying to sound threatening, but the fear of the moment and Naruto and the exhaustion and the adrenaline… it just made me sound like I was pleading with him.

He kept walking forward, and by then I could make out his four-eyed, snot nosed brats coming along with him.

"Aw, what's the matter?" He spoke like he was talking to an infant, except his voice was soaked in venom. "Are you _scared_?" No _shit_. My hands were shaking by my sides, and my teeth were chattering. I wasn't cold.

"P-please…" I stuttered, finally giving into him. "I d-don't want to… to…" I scrunched my eyes shut, looked at the ground, barred my teeth, and started crying again. My own thoughts started bouncing around in my brain, echoing and sending chills down my spine.

_Why am I so… weak? _I was pathetic, helpless. I was standing here, waiting for them to come walk all over me, and I knew it. I knew it, but I didn't do anything to stop them.

"To what?" The closeness of his voice startled me, and I let out a whimper and jumped back. Unfortunately for me, I had forgotten that I was basically two inches from a solid fucking wall. When my skull slammed against the brick, my world really started spinning. I could feel my breathing getting heavy, and I found myself forcing my eyelids up.

Something warm that reeked of iron dripped and slithered down my cheek. It made me even dizzier; so much that I could only vaguely hear the laughter sounding in the distance.

It was sick, coldhearted happiness.

_This is it… _I thought, though I had thought those words many times before. _This is the end... _

Something grabbed my wrists and pinned them up against the wall right beside my bleeding head. It used so much force that the Shuriken holster and my headband fell right out of my hands, _clanking _on the floor. A little anger shot through me, and it gave me enough sanity to see straighter.

It was Hibachi, of course. He was still smiling evilly, and the look in his eyes said it all.

_Look at how weak she is, _he was thinking to himself. It took every ounce of my being to fight back more tears. _Look how light… I could probably pick her right up and bend her, and she'd break. She'd snap right in half_. He started chuckling silently as he entertained the thought.

The sad thing was, he was probably right.

When he leaned in closer with his revolting face and smile, looking right into mine with his bloodthirsty eyes, my body went rigid. His head veered off to the side a little bit, and I, once again, scrunched my eyes completely closed. It was almost innocent, like he was going to tell me a secret.

"Do you know what I'm going to make you do?" He whispered, and my willpower started melting away in his grip.

_Scream_, something told me, but I ruled it out. No one would come.

"I'm going to make you wish that you never saved him."

NARUTO

In front of the academy, there was a wide open field that we all waited at before going inside for the day. In the corner by a picket fence, there was a tall, full tree that cast a good-sized shadow, perfect if you didn't want the sun beating down on your back.

Nobody typically went there, because it was my spot. Chiasa was the only one who ever even _wanted _to share it with me.

There was a swing dangling from the longest, strongest branch. It wasn't that high up, but my feet still never touched the ground as I sat on it. The wind was blowing me back and forth, pushing me like the parents that I never had to play with me.

I rested my bare forehead on one of the ropes that held up the swing. I didn't put on my goggles that day because I was going to wear my headband for the first time. I wondered where it was now, probably lying in a trash can somewhere.

I stared into the grass, watching a lonely ant crawl his way up a blade. I wondered idly if there were any other ants nearby, and if those ants were ignoring him. I wondered how sad that ant must feel, how much pain the others were putting him through.

"I'm a Ninja now!" Someone was laughing from the crowed a ways in front of me. There was a huge group of people in front of the academy door, full of new Genin and their parents.

"I'm proud of you, son." I gripped the rope, not out of anger, but just for something to squeeze so that I wouldn't start crying. I could feel the hysteria crawling up my throat, making its way to my eyes.

Crying was Chiasa's thing. I hated doing it.

_Chiasa_… Her name was almost strange to me now. It was impossible to think that only yesterday, she was my best friend in the entire world.

Now I didn't even have her.

"I'm so proud of you!" A mom was crying in her own pride. "I'll cook whatever you want tonight! Whatever you want!" My hearing was selective. It wasn't as good as Chiasa's, but I could still hear every conversation going on between every person there.

"Look at that kid." Someone said in a low, disgusted voice. It was a woman, the mother of one of the academy kids. I had never seen her in my life, yet she was talking about me. She was staring right at me with that _glare… _whispering to her friend.

"I heard he's the only one who failed; they even passed the _other _one." Now I was really squeezing the life out of the rope. If Chiasa was here, I wouldn't mind them. They'd be glaring at her, too. I wouldn't be so alone… I didn't think.

"Thank God… could you imagine what would have happened if they passed him? I mean, he's the-"

"Shh! We're allowed to talk about that!" I knew better then to look up in confusion. People always said stuff like that about me, like I was a monster or something. The whole village was keeping something from me. If it weren't for the fact that they did this to Chiasa too, I'd be beginning to think that she was in on it with them.

I looked back down at the ant, wondering if he was accepted yet. Sure enough, he was still there. He was just resting on the blade of grass, not even moving. Just as I was beginning to wonder if ants could cry, my train of thought was interrupted by a foot. Instead of at the ant, I was starring at a blue sandal that could've belonged to anyone.

I looked up to see a white-haired man in a Chunin vest, and I recognized him as Mizuki Sensei. He was smiling down at me, not knowing that he had just crushed a helpless, lonely little bug under his foot.

CHIASA

I was about to lose it. Barely hanging onto reality by a thread, I forced my body to relax and I let my head hang low. Hibachi was still pushing me against the wall, and I could just barely see my headband on the floor through the splotches in my vision.

"Some Ninja you are," he scoffed, and I peered up at him through the curls falling down in front of my face. "You know what I think?" He was fighting back laughter so that he could finish his thought. I didn't ask him what, somehow hoping that he wouldn't say anything else.

"I think that if I killed you, not a single person would miss you." And with that, he freed one of my wrists and placed his sweaty hand on my forehead. With hardly any effort at all, he slammed my head back up against the wall.

I can't really explain what happened next.

I went practically blind and numb when I heard my skull crack, and I tasted a warm, salty liquid boil up in my throat. With nowhere else to spit, I coughed my own blood up and spat it right at him. I could barely see that I missed his face, but I could tell that I had gotten it all over his clothes. Absentmindedly, I smiled.

"Try not looking like a suspect, then, with my blood all over your shirt." For once, his smile vanished. I was going to close my eyes and wait for the next blow, but then something caught my attention. I don't know where I got the strength, but I piped up wide-eyed and stared into the distance.

There, on the top of an archway right across the street, was the lantern that I had seen on the back of Sasuke's shirt.

_The Uchiha Village! _

I had been so close to the forest… how did I not realize it?

When I looked around the alleyway and realized where I was, it was like someone had breathed life back into me.

I _knew_ this place.

With that lantern sticking out in the distance and memories flooding back to me, I felt something that I hadn't felt in a long time.

_Strength._

The adrenaline was released automatically, but for once I welcomed it; it would keep me going.

I looked around for an escape, forming a plan in my head. If I could build up enough courage to injure Hibachi somehow, I knew his little friends wouldn't touch me.

At the time, I couldn't really explain what was putting all of this fight in me. Nevertheless, I bowed my head one more time and waited for Hibachi's confused face to smile again.

He must have seen the light in my eyes, because when his smile returned it wasn't as confident as before.

If he thought that I was giving up again, that I was going to let him lay another hand on me, he was sadly mistaken. Without thinking, I thrusted my skull square into his chest, letting all of the Chakra flow up to my head so that I didn't snap my own neck.

I could _feel _the wind get knocked out of him, and I heard him cursing me out in his head as he staggered back. When I lifted my head up up and my Chakra had gotten proportionate again, I bent down and picked up my headband and Shuriken holster. Hibachi was reorienting himself, and that gave me time to strap the Holster around my leg and put the band in my back pocket.

Standing up straighter, I found myself smiling at them. I wiped the blood from my mouth with my forearm and took my defensive stance.

At that one moment, though I was scared out of my _mind_, I felt better than I had in a long time. I knew better then to tell them to come at me because I would probably pass out, but I managed to keep myself from shaking as the four of them made an unsure wall, blocking me from running out of the alleyway.

Hibachi's good mood was shot to hell, and he was _snarling _at me. I got out of my defensive position and tried to mentally prepare myself to escape.

Getting a little too dizzy, and with wobbly legs, I jumped.

I could naturally jump higher than most people because I didn't really weigh anything. As my body easily lifted up and soared a good thirty feet into the air, I felt free. Even though it was just for a second, and even though I had to focus more on landing on the roof of one of the buildings, it was still the best feeling in the world. I felt like there would be warmth spreading through me even if there was a blizzard outside.

When my feet hit the concrete roof, I didn't stop to look down at Hibachi or his idiots. I just bolted, feeling queasy.

All of the good feelings were gone, and I was back to myself.

My heart was hammering down on my chest, and my head was spinning. All I could think was, who _was _that girl?

I kept running on the roof, keeping my footsteps light until I was parallel with the forest. Just to be careful, I made sure that they weren't waiting for me on the street. Sure enough, I could hear them still standing, dumbstruck in the alleyway.

_Now's my chance to disappear. _I thought, taking a few steps back. Wishing that I could close my eyes, I threw myself forward and jumped off of the building, preparing to land in the trees.

NARUTO

"Iruka Sensei's not trying to be mean to you." Mizuki was trying to reassure me. Admittedly, though, I felt a little better here. We were sitting on the balcony of the building that he lived in, and it had no railing so I let my feet dangle off the side as I took in the Village beneath me.

Streaks of red and orange painted the sky, but the sun was hidden behind the plateau. Everyone was settling down as the day was ending, and the silence was calming. I could think clearer now, take in the fresh air of the forest and try to hear Mizuki out.

It wasn't so easy though, because no matter what was laid out in front of me, I couldn't shake this complete and total _hatred _that I felt towards Iruka Sensei.

"If that's true, then… why only me?" There were plenty of kids that used to be in my class that would die out there, and he knew it. If I had been running around pranking the entire village for as long as I could remember and never had gotten caught, you'd think he'd realize that I had a better chance of surviving.

"Iruka wants you to be strong more than anything." I would've laughed had I been in a better mood. "Do you know something? He can relate to you better than anyone else." I actually looked up at him in disbelief. I was nothing like Iruka Sensei. I refused to believe it. If a kid had stood in front of me today with a dream stronger than anyone else's, I would have passed him. I was sure of it.

"We're nothing alike!" I felt the anger surge inside of me, and I have to admit that I scared myself. Even though I yelled at him, Mizuki still kept his expression calm and smooth. His smile was effortless, something that I'd never seen before.

"Did you know that he was an orphan, just like you?" It was like a shock had run through my body. My eyes shot wide open and I sat up straight, but I couldn't look into his eyes. I just stared down at the dirt roads and colorful buildings of the Leaf Village. There were so many things that I could've said to that… I could have said that that was no excuse, or that Chiasa was one, too… but I knew that he'd argue for Iruka Sensei no matter what, because all Sensei were biased.

I still wasn't going down without a fight.

"Well, no… but I really wanted to graduate!" There was nothing that he could say to argue with that, and I wouldn't listen to him no matter whathe said.

"Fine then," he sighed, peering at me through his long hair. I just looked at him for a second, confused, waiting for him to continue. "I guess I have no choice but to tell you." He was smiling, and he had my attention.

"Tell me what?" I asked suspiciously. I trusted him, but it was hard to understand what the hell he was talking about. If it was anything to help me graduate, I'd do it.

"I'll let you in on a big secret, but you can't tell anyone."

CHIASA

Things didn't get better no matter how far I pushed into the forest. It was almost nighttime, and I had no idea where I was. I wasn't breathing right, my head was spinning, I wanted to throw up, and I could barely walk. It didn't matter how far I went from the main part of the Village, I was still shaking just as much as I was when I was Hibachi's little prisoner.

I figured that I should stop soon, if I wasn't going to turn back, and rest. When night fell and I was still wandering, I'd be lost for sure. Of course, if I kept walking I'd eventually make it to the village gate. It was a fifty foot maroon wall that circled all the way around the village, and I could follow it back to the main entrance.

Even still, I'd end up taking so long that I'd miss my graduation.

I kept walking until I found a place where the trees were a little bit more sparse, and leaned on a beech tree. As I was catching my breath, I looked around the forest and took it all in for the first time.

I had never been to the west half of the inner forest before; it wasn't any more or less beautiful then the east half, but I still felt like I was trespassing. The east half was-or at least, used to be- my home. I couldn't tell what was so different about this side, maybe that there was less water and more grass, or maybe because this side was mostly Spruce and Beech while the other side was mostly Oak and Pine, but something about it just seemed… strange. Not unwelcoming, just… different.

Where I had stopped turned out to be very peaceful. There were too many trees to consider it a clearing, but the space in between the trees left room for the intricate shadows of their leaves to decorate the grass…

It was weird, but I didn't notice the giant boulder in the center of the small haven until a subtle sound woke me up from the trance that I had fallen into and I realized that I was staring right at it.

It was almost as tall as the towering trees, and it probably weighed at least two tons. There was one crack in it somewhere closer to the bottom that for some reason sent a shiver down my spine. I started to stand up, only then realizing that there was something way too eerie about this place.

It felt like my legs were going to fall from under me, but I had the tree to help support me. As I was coming to what was kind of a complete stand, I accidentally kicked something. The sound was hollow, yet instead of easily brushing whatever it was aside, I stubbed my toe on it.

"Ow!" I cried out, almost losing my balance. I looked down to see what I had hit, and I found the strangest little multi-colored target under my feet. I had the feeling that I wouldn't be able to pick it up, so I just bent down and looked at it more closely.

It was dirty, and it looked like it hadn't been new in years. There were strange markings all over it, and in the most random places. Carefully, I brushed my fingers over them to see if I could recognize them by touch.

They were in the oddest places. There was one mark in the bull's-eye that looked like it had been hit many times, but there were also three or four marks around it and about ten marks placed randomly throughout the entire board.

When I realized what they were, I felt my face go pale and I jumped back. I was on my feet in a second, breathing so fast that I swore I'd hyperventilate.

Kunai marks.

Would my past _never _stop haunting me?

Some of those marks were fresh. Someone trained here, and I didn't know how often. They could be lurking around the corner, and if they were stealthy enough, I wouldn't even hear it.

"Yo," called a cold, deep voice. I backed up into the tree and gasped, looking around for my company. Even though the tree didn't even touch my head, my skull still sent a twinge of pain throughout my body. I was usually quick to heal, but I had hit my head pretty hard on the brick.

As the dark figure emerged from the shadows of the forest and let the light ignite his features, a thousand emotions shot through me.

He was probably the _last _person that I wanted to see right now, and I didn't even know why.

"I'm sorry," I breathed, fighting to keep the pain out of my voice. "Were you training here, Sasuke?" It sent another chill through me when I realized the total oddity of him alone. Even with my ears, I had barely heard him coming, and I was only just now subtly picking up his thoughts. He was too… stealthy. It sent a warning wave of danger throughout my body, and I knew I had to run."I didn't mean to intrude."

He chuckled, though it sounded more like an arrogant grunt, and the ghost of a sneer started playing at the edges of his lips. I knew that he was trying to act cool, but it honestly just made me more queasy. When I picked up Hibachi's name in his thoughts, though, that's when my heart started racing.

"Not at all," he began to walk forward, not taking his eyes off mine as he came.

_Why me? _I complained, though I wasn't quite sure who I was talking to. _Why him? Why now? _

As of now, I hated him. I hated him for watching me like Hibachi did, like I was some fresh piece of meat waiting to be devoured. I hated him for holding my eyes in his stare and running a blush under the skin of my cheeks. I didn't care what I ever did, _this _was the worst kind of weak.

I knew he must've been the one training here. I lowered my eyebrows to try and make myself seem angry, and I would've backed up had there not been a tree behind me.

"What are you doing here?" He asked. As he got closer, I started shaking. It took everything I had just to sound nonchalant when I answered.

"I…" He already knew why I was here. He had seen me run from them, I was sure of it.

"I-" He stopped walking when he was about five feet away from me.

"Did _you_ come here to train?" This was the kid who never said a word to anyone else, even when they were talking to him. Of all the days and of all the people to decide to be sociable, it had to be him, and it had to be today.

I sighed, looking for an escape. No matter which way I went, it seemed like he'd be able to tackle me in a second.

_No sudden movements, _something suddenly whispered. He was like a wild animal. Calm until I started running.

"No, I was just passing through." I assured him. It was, in reality, true. I had never aimed to even come here, but fate had forced the two of us together.

_Great, _I groaned internally.

"If you'll excuse me, I should be getting back. Naruto will-" I was nothing special when it came to lying, but I had never made myself so obvious before. I was blushing so badly that I could _feel _hot blood running around under my face, an immediate lump grew in my throat after I said Naruto's name and cut me off mid-sentence, and I couldn't even look him in the eyes.

"Wait, train with me." He said suddenly. I jumped, startled at his abruptness, and found myself lost again in his mysterious black eyes. He was scrutinizing my every move, like I was a game of shogi and he was finding the quickest way to checkmate.

"What? I-I… um..." I felt like covering my face. I was terrified. It was probably the aftermath of being so brave in the alley, but I still wanted to shriek. Whenever I showed even the tiniest sliver of courage, which, admittedly, wasn't often, I always ran home, slammed the door behind me, and cowered in a corner.

"Are you scared to fight me?" My jaw dropped and my eyes opened so wide that I thought they were going to pop right out of my head. My arms started shaking at my sides and I stopped breathing.

The very word paralyzed me.

"Get away from me." I snarled, still looking at the ground. I stepped to the side to clear a path behind me. When the time was right, I'd run.

Sasuke Uchiha was stronger than me, stealthier than me, more skilled than me, and bigger in every way, but I would _always _be faster. I was the fastest out of everyone in our class; that's why I was so good at escaping.

I could hear the thoughts going through his sick head; he was trying to figure out how to crack me. He didn't want to break me like Hibachi, but for some reason that I can't explain, he _wanted _me to fight him.

We were back to being the safe.

I was _Naruto's _safe. I'd only open up to him. By some twist of fate, though, I had fallen in Sasuke's grasp. Now he was trying to figure out how to open me, and I was trying desperately to stay shut.

"I'll go easy on you." He sneered, lowering his stance like he was going to pounce. By this point, I had had enough. In five seconds, I would turn around and sprint, refusing to look back.

Before I could even set my mind on running though, I had pushed my entire body off of the ground, soaring to the right, back to standing in front of the tree.

Sasuke's fist had missed me by two inches.

"What the _fuck _is wrong with you?!" I was panting, my whole body was shaking all over, and I could hear myself breathing. It took everything I had to just stand there and not bolt for the Village.

_Hmm, _he thought. _I wonder… _I braced myself, waiting for what was coming next. One of the main reasons that I had the fastest reflexes is that I could hear what my enemy was going to do in their mind a second or two before they actually did it.

"Sorry," he smirked. What the fuck _was _this kid? I was barring my teeth at him. The total rage that was making my blood hit its boiling point was making the small hairs on my arms stand up.

"I don't want to start trouble with your idiot or anything, so go home." He stuck his hands in his pockets, closed his eyes, and smiled at the ground.

All of the fear inside of me was killed in an instant.

"What did you just call him?" My voice was so threatening that I was scaring myself. I balled my hands into fists, ready to lash out at him at any second.

"Your idiot." He spoke matter-of-factly, as though I actually hadn't heard him. I had never met a more childish, nauseating, and just all around messed up person in my entire life, and he still managed to make it look cool.

"Try saying that again."

"Oh," He chuckled, and his shoulders, royal blue clothed with the sleeves of his shirt, moved up and down in his laughter. "That loser's the biggest idiot in the entire village, you can't deny that." Before I knew it, I was off my feet again.

"Fucking bastard!" I shrieked, holding out my fist and tearing through the air, heading straight for him. He was still looking at the ground by the time I could barely graze his face. He looked up just in time to see the anger in my eyes that reflected in his.

For the second time in my life, I had actually punched somebody. It only hurt, no doubt, because I was going at him so fast, but he still fell to the floor in shock, skidding one or two inches across the grass. I landed on my feet, one on each side of him.

"Don't say another word about him, do you hear me?" My voice was dark, and all of the hatred that I had managed to bury over the years came right back up.

He arrogantly grunted again, and I looked at him like he was insane. That's when I realized it.

I had let him crack me.

"Damn it…" I muttered, backing up to let him stand. As he got up, I noticed the big red mark on his cheek.

"Are you going to fight me now?" He asked, jokingly impatient. I sighed and folded my arms, pursing my lips and looking the other way. "You _are_ a Ninja, aren't you?" Just the sound of the word surprised me.

Yes, I was a Ninja. I might've been the most cowardly, pitiable, weak one in history, but I was still a Leaf Village Kunoichi.

It was the first time that anyone besides Naruto had acknowledged me as something more than garbage before, and he didn't even realize it.

"Um..." I didn't know what to say. He smirked at me like he was expecting me to react like this, and I reached my hand around to my back pocket and clutched the metal plate of my headband.

Yes, I was definitely a Ninja.

"If you're a Ninja, then act like one." I had trained my whole life for this, so I couldn't let myself down. He was right; if I earned that headband, I should prove that I deserve it.

Steadily, I pulled it out of my back pocket, put it up to my face, and tied it around my forehead.

I nodded at him, and we started.

It was all pretty hectic from there.

He took the first move, inevitably, and tried to punch me in the face again. I easily moved out of the way of his fist, and smiled at him when he stumbled forward with his own momentum.

"It's not going to be so easy, beating me." I warned him as he caught himself and charged for me again, this time for a body slam. I simply stepped to the side, still smiling.

"Damn it!" He gasped as he fell forward again. He looked back over at me like I was some kind of monster.

"To you, it probably looks like I'm disappearing and reappearing out of reach, right?" I chuckled and smiled at the ground, mocking his position from earlier. He barred his teeth in anger at me, but I just laughed back at him.

"Well, I may have a solution to your problem…" He raised an eyebrow, and I had to keep myself from laughing. Slowly, I raised my left heel and pushed myself off of the ground with the tip of my toe. It felt like I was flying at light speed as I brought myself around behind him.

I was going to keep up with the "acting cool" ordeal, but right as I was in mid-punch, he turned around. Even though my fist was going so fast that you could only see it blur down through the air, he jumped back and dodged it.

"And what would that be?" He asked, heating up. I almost felt bad that I had made him pant a little. Almost.

"Get faster."

And I charged at him.

For a while, we followed a pattern. One would swing, one would dodge, then the other would swing, and the other would dodge. I was so tired by five minutes of it that I had to end up running completely on adrenaline.

Finally, he swung his foot around so high that it'd hit me right in the face had I just stayed there.

Of course, my body moved of its own accord and ducked under it, only to stand right back up and jump.

I was going so high that Sasuke had to crane his neck to see me, and I probably could've gone higher if this headband wasn't weighing my head down. I did, however, land on a long branch of the beech tree that I had been leaning on before he showed up. I placed my hand on it to support myself, thankful for however long I had where he couldn't get me.

"Running again, Uzumaki?" He snickered.

It was like he had landed a shot on me. I almost staggered back, but I knew it meant that I'd fall 20 feet, and, knowing me, I'd black out after falling five.

Yes, I _was _running. I was so sick of it, yet, as always, I had fled. Running is what I had always done. It's what killed one of the first people to ever acknowledge me, but it's the only thing that I've ever been strong enough to do.

"Shut up." I said, darker than I had ever been before. My headband cast a shadow over my eyes as I looked down, and tears started cascading down my cheeks. "You don't know anything about me." He actually laughed at that, as though he had the nerve to disagree.

"Why were you running before, Chiasa? Why were they even chasing you?" I clenched my fists and punched the tree from the side, not leaving a dent in it.

"Wouldn't _you_ like to know?" He frowned and picked up his hands. My heart skipped a beat.

"We can do this the hard way, if that's what you really want." When he started weaving hand seals, that's when I realized that I shouldn't have challenged him.

He was going so fast that I couldn't even put names to the symbols. It was undoubtedly a real Ninjutsu, and I was at a loss for words. I had thought that I was the only Genin in our year who could use one, but I was clearly wrong.

"_Fire style!_" He called, making a circle with his fingers and bringing it up towards his mouth. _"Fire ball Jutsu!_" I gasped and jumped away right when I saw him lift up his shoulders, throw himself into the circle around his lips, spew orange flame, and felt warm air whip across my face.

As I was airborne, going back towards a different, colder tree branch, I saw it.

It was the biggest fire that I've ever seen, and that's an understatement. Burning waves of auburn blaze were bursting out _inside _of it, and it looked like a brilliant ruby that was slowly eating away at the tree. I knew I'd never stop bawling if I ever saw a forest fire, because the tree being killed was already making my cry.

Just as I landed on the other tree, the pyromaniac stopped and turned to me, ready to do it again. The tree ceased to burn, luckily, when he left it alone. It was still half died black, though, and it was permanently charred.

When he started to make the first hand seal, I almost keeled over.

"Stop!" I begged him, my chest getting more sore with every heartbeat. He smiled at me and resigned himself, waiting for me to come down.

_This… _pain… It was forcing me under its control, drowning me in its waves like the ocean. I clutched my shirt and the skin of my chest with my hand, taking deep breaths.

It brought back so many memories.

_"Naruto…" The soft-spoken girl murmured, her neon white face drenched in rosy pink. Carefully, she peered at the boy walking triumphantly in front of her. At his name, he stopped in his tracks and turned around worriedly. _

_"What's wrong?" His brow furrowed in confusion, and his wide smile began to fade. She looked at the ground sadly, biting her extraordinarily light pink lips as though to prevent herself from saying anything. The last thing that she wanted to do was disappoint him._

_"I-I… I have a bad feeling..." She mumbled, looking up at him again. Slowly, her ears began to burn as brightly as her face. "We should go to the playground another day."_

_Naruto pursed his lips at his intuitive best friend, trying to figure out what he wanted. He didn't want to hurt her feelings, but he had really wanted to play with her..._

_"What's the worst thing that could happen?" He asked in all seriousness. Once more, her face fell and her heart rate shot through her chest._

_"O-Okay…" She gave in, trying to hide her shakiness the best she could._

_She, with her seven year old eyes, stared up at the mid-day sky in fear. Not knowing what she was waiting for, she sat there on the rubber swing glancing at Naruto playing in the sand box. The wind was rocking her back and forth with ease, sending a shiver up her spine._

Nothing ever went along this easily.

_Clutching the handless that held her to the swing set, she closed her eyes and listened to everything around her. The birds were singing an afternoon song, breathing easily on a Saturday. There was no one else at the playground, and the only sounds among her and her easygoing companion were the sliding of sand and the creek of a swing._

_That's when she heard the footsteps._

_She guessed that they were around the corner, but she couldn't be sure. Not that it mattered; She'd know that sound from a mile away._

_Her muscles tensed as her mind went blank with the cool air that she had sucked in. She wanted to scream, get up from the swing and run towards Naruto, and tell him that they had to get out of there._

_As much as she wanted to protect her friend, she was frozen, and she hated herself. Subtly, she heard the others walking behind him. He was getting closer, and she gripped the swing more and more tightly._

_With eyes drenched in pain, she looked at care-free Naruto. She wished she could be like him, oblivious to so many things until they came and stared him in the face._

_The footsteps were so close that they started echoing in her head. If she had the power and the courage, she could probably turn her head and see him there at the gate, ready to break them._

_Naruto looked up in an instant, but only out of purely innocent curiosity. She could see the monster's reflection in his eyes, and his ever-standing sneer was tainted blue with their ocean color. _

_"Hey, yellow hair!" Goosebumps exploded across her arms, and she'd be shaking if she was strong enough. _

Naruto… _She pleaded futilely in her head, _Run… Please run… _Hibachi and the three small looking boys behind him walked over to the sand box, and she sat there staring at their backs. _

_Naruto looked at Hibachi almost angrily, clenching his fists and standing up to try and see eye to eye with him. A faint whimper escaped her throat, only to be covered up by the roar of the wind._

_He was about five inches shorter._

_"What the hell do _you _want?" He puffed out his chest, trying to look tough. Hibachi roared with laughter, and before Naruto could do anything, he grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and pulled him up off of the ground until he was tall enough to stare at the boy's nose. _

_One of the three boys automatically came around to Naruto's back and took his arms captive. She scrunched her eyes shut, feeling cool, calming tears slide down her face._

I'm sorry, Naruto… _She whispered in her mind, _I'm really, really sorry… _There was a stabbing pain in her chest that took her breath away, one that she knew that she'd never forget._

_She was back to hearing sounds._

_The first sound she heard was like an electric shock; the sound of Naruto being thrown to the floor. _

_It remobilized her._

_The second sound was the sound of flesh being beaten; they were kicking him._

_Suddenly, though she couldn't explain it, she wasn't scared anymore._

_All of her fear had been knocked out- or at least overcoated- and her eyes shot open. Her heart pumped anger through her veins- all of her blood had boiled away at the hot feeling of it._

_He was just lying there helplessly and taking it, not knowing what he had ever done to them. _

_With her forehead pounding and eyes dark, she stood up from her swing and let herself fall six inches to the floor._

_She landed on her feet._

_With her little hands balled up into fists, she ran as fast as she could, as easily as though she never had to force herself forward._

_She couldn't name the feeling at the time, for she had never felt it before… but whatever it was, to her it felt indescribably good. So good that, had she been happier, she would've smiled._

_The shallow sound of her feet hitting the mulch made Hibachi's ear twitch, and he stopped beating Naruto and turned to face his new threat head on._

_"Who're you?" He looked at her just like everyone else had; like she was garbage, laying there for the sole purpose of being thrown away. She clenched her fists more tightly and bit her lip once more. _

_Taking one last deep breath, she pushed herself towards him with the toes of her right foot, then started ripping through the air._

_He never saw her coming._

_Because she couldn't comfortably reach his collar, she thrust her left hand into the middle of his sweater and grabbed, hoping that she had snagged some of his skin. Shock filled his face; he thought he recognized her, but the determined look in her eyes threw him off._

_"Y-You're…" He squinted at her._

_"Stop hurting Naruto…" She glared up at him, and he saw the whites of her eyes through the shadow cast down on them by her forehead. Without letting go of his sweater, she picked up her other fist and squeezed it so tightly that the vein in her hand bulged out. She didn't know why he was here or why he was doing this, but for the first time ever, she didn't care._

_Trying not to think about it, she pulled him down by his shirt- relying on her speed to give her the strength- and plunged her tightly clenched fist into his face. When she felt skin hit her fingers and her knuckles twinge with a spasm of pain, she let go of his shirt and Hibachi went flying._

_As he thudded in the ground, he coughed and let himself get covered with dirt. When he had the strength, he looked up at her with the same, horrified expression as the three who had come with him._

_Somehow, being looked at like that instead of with the glare didn't feel any better to her._

I didn't even bother to look at him. I could hear that something had clicked inside his mind… like if I was a jigsaw puzzle, he had just snapped in the last piece.

"Come down from there…" He murmured, trying to hold my gaze again. I was too determined now; I wouldn't fall into his hands and be his puppet.

So, without looking at anything besides his feet, I jumped off of the branch and waited to hit the ground.

Falling was something that used to scare me.

As I landed, I reached for my leg to see what they had put inside of my Shuriken holster. When I found my hand around the handle to a Kunai Knife, I knew the tables were about to turn.

I landed holding it out like a sword, ready to tear through him. Then, trying to hold _his _gaze, I smiled up at him one last time.

"Fine, then. Let's finish this."

He didn't even bother to take out a weapon; he was that sure of himself. We ran towards the center, right towards the boulder, ready to put an end to this.

It wasn't like I didn't have anything up my sleeve.

Now that I had the knife, he wasn't just carelessly throwing himself at me. I kept trying to swing for his vulnerable points-nothing vital, of course- but he was too hard to get.

I stopped to catch my breath for just a second, but that second could've cost me the entire fight.

He brought his fist around one last time, and, for the first time in my life, I had been hit. He had only hit my wrist, though, and the Kunai went flying out of my hand.

It zoomed past my face and all the way back towards the trees, stabbing in to one.

We both froze in that position for a minute.

I was leaning back a little, as his blow had pushed me, and he was leaning forward, putting all of his weight into the hand that was now clutching my wrist. My arm was extended up well over my head, and my palm was vulnerably flat in the air.

It felt like it was on fire.

I glowered a good six inches up at him and he met my eyes with one just as intense.

Then, because he refused to be anything other than obnoxiously confusing, he chuckled arrogantly again.

"You can't kill me," he said coolly, as though challenging me. I can't explain why I did it, but I let my lips curl up into a sneer and I smiled back at him.

"I know." Quickly, before he could even react, I brought my free fist around and jumped so that I could reach his face. I only grazed his cheek though, but I still got him to free my other hand and move back a little.

I wasn't going to waste any more time.

I ran forwards to meet him head on and swung my leg up to roundhouse kick him in the face. He moved his body inwards, letting my leg soar all the way back to the ground.

I was suddenly thanking the dead for teaching me Taijutsu.

When my foot landed on the floor, I was facing the other way for less than half a second. I swung back around, letting the adrenaline power me, held out my right fist, and stabilized my arm as I went to punch him in the stomach, knowing that trying to reach his face would take too long.

Apparently someone had taught him Taijutsu, too.

He was already there, grabbing my arm and securing it in his grip. He grabbed me by the wrist again, so that my hand would become useless.

"Damn…" I muttered, looking towards the ground. _There has to be a way out of this, _I thought critically. As I lost my focus and my mind began to wander, I almost fell into another trance.

Before I could doze off, however, one of the main Shinobi rules was hurled back into my head.

When in battle, especially one of close range, _never _take your eyes off of your opponent.

I could start to feel my speeding heart beat come back a little, and I knew that my time being brave was almost over. I'd lose for sure if I didn't end this before all of my aggression wore off; I'd be the most pathetic thing you'd ever see.

I couldn't think of much more on that, though, because Sasuke's grasp on my arm tightened, and I was suddenly whipped off of my feet. He was pulling me towards him, ready to finish me off with a final blow to the face.

There was no way that I could run this time.

So, instead of closing my eyes and accepting defeat, I somehow managed to grab his fist in my hand and put all of my Chakra into keeping it away from hitting me.

I was pushing it away so hard that I actually pushed myself back to the floor.

For about another minute, he tried to push past my defense. After that, though, I guess he decided that he was going to store up his Chakra to finish things when he had the chance.

We stood there again, frozen in action for the second time. Now, though, we weren't even looking at each other. We both looked down, catching our breath.

If one of us didn't make a move soon, we'd be here all night.

"Neither… of us… can… use Ninjutsu… like this…" I breathed. As I looked at the ground, I noticed that there was about an inch between both of our feet, and both of our clothes were drenched in sweat.

"Yeah." He agreed, starting to turn back into his usual one-word response self.

Simultaneously, we both slowly looked up. It would never end if no one let go, but whoever did would lose without question.

There was only one sensible answer, really.

He relaxed his shoulders but stood up straight, losing his hold on me ever so slightly. I nodded at him, and in only a moment, we broke free.

We both jumped back, leaving a good two yards in between us, and braced ourselves again.

There was only one way for my plan to work.

SASUKE

I had finally gotten her to fight. I could see something in her eyes that told me that she was serious now; the trick was clearly to insult Naruto.

I had no idea _why _she was so protective over him, nor did I have any intention of finding out. All I knew was that I was wasting Chakra by going easy on her, because she could take it, and I knew that for a fact.

Yet, no matter how much I despised it, there was some very small part of me that just couldn't really hurt her.

If this was going to end, I'd have to silence it.

The amazing thing was that after all this time, she still did this to me. Around everyone else, she was scared. That much was obvious. She still acted cool, though, and made sure that no one came near her, trying to hide the fact that she was afraid.

Here, though I was almost sure that she didn't realize it, she wasn't hiding her fear at all. In her defensive position, her frail body shook, and the teeth that she barred were chattering. She was so angry, yet impossibly pathetic at the same time. Had I really thought her to be my enemy, she'd already be lying on the floor in a million broken pieces without a doubt.

"H-Hey…" She breathed darkly, letting her stance fall. "Sasuke…" Her hands rested suspiciously by her sides, and I could swear that her grimace formed the ghost of a shaky smile.

"Think… fast." There was a moment of silence, and I was embarrassingly tense as I waited for her to do something.

The Shuriken flew at me without warning.

She threw them so quickly that I could only see the reflection of the moon shine on their metal spikes for a split second, and that she had transferred from standing straight to hunching over, holding her hand outwards with the pouch of her Shuriken Holster open.

I dodged them easily enough. I simply jumped out of their way.

When I managed to calm down, I looked at her still standing there. What did she take me for?

"What kind of an attack was that?" I asked, dumbfounded. She had thrown the Shuriken at me for almost no reason, as though expecting that she wouldn't have missed. Then, as though that wasn't enough, she didn't react at all except by getting out of her lunge when she saw that her attack had failed.

Suddenly, she was coming towards me. I could tell by the way that she ran that she couldn't take much more of this. With her stamina, I was surprised that she had made it this far. It looked like her microscopic frame- composed entirely of skin and thin bones- was about to crumble under her.

I was going to feel sorry for her when she surprised me again.

Instead of trying to punch me again (which I had been ready for), she stopped a couple feet short and changed her stance entirely.

Silently, she shifted her weight to her other foot and swung her leg up to hit me right in the face. Without having anything else to do in such a short amount of time, I jumped back and swung my leg up to block hers.

She grimaced as they crashed against each other, and together they made an X in the air.

"CHIASA"

Something wasn't right. Not only was I at half my previous strength-which wasn't very much to begin with- but something about this just felt… awkward. Like there was a force greater than just the other's legs keeping us both from putting our feet down.

There was a weird aura flowing in between us that was whispering something in my ear. Neither of us would fall while the other was still standing. At this point, we were both pushing on the other's leg so hard that if one of us pulled our leg away the other would come crashing to the floor.

As of now, we were dependant on each other.

I was forcing all of my Chakra to my leg to keep our strength balanced, as he wasn't using any of his Chakra at all. I was staring right into his eyes with what I knew must've been such a pained expression, but he only answered with coolness.

He pushed on, trying to make me fall, and I coughed out a little cowardly whimper of pain.

_I can't lose now, _I was telling myself, _it's been working to well for me to fall here. _So I summed up every ounce of strength in my body and put it into finishing him and slamming his leg to the floor.

Before that night, I had never actually seen my own Chakra before because I had never been pushed this far. I had assumed that it was a natural light blue, just like everyone else's.

Oh, how wrong I was.

The first thing that I noticed was Sasuke's face grow an unnaturally pale white, and then he began to stand out entirely amongst the rest of the forest that stood under the crescent that was slowly making its way up the sky.

Then, as his eyes widened, I got the uneasy feeling that it wasn't him that was glowing.

I let my gaze cautiously drift down to my leg, and I nearly fainted at what I saw.

I would never stop being different, would I?

It was Chakra alright. It was big, exotic, flame-like, brilliant neon white Chakra that sent chills across my skin. It was _freezing_, yet it gave off the most unpleasant warm feeling that filled me with this rotten false happiness.

I was just as shocked as he was.

"Chiasa!" He called, seeming distant. Something was wrong- I couldn't hear his thoughts anymore. I must've been wasting too much Chakra. I idly met his gaze, but I could hardly hear him- or feel his presence at all- because none of the muscles in my body seemed to work.

Even so, I kept my leg up and it somehow kept pushing.

I might've been too out of it to see straight, but I _think _that I was even winning. Because I was too numb to feel anything specific, it just pushed me further into my idle state.

"Y-your hair!" Someone was shouting, over the roar of something louder than my heart beat or the shaking of my trembling body.

Absent-mindedly, I reached my hand over my shoulder and grabbed a handful of curls.

I brought them into my view, and then gasped back into reality.

The jolt of surprise made me lose whatever focus I apparently had, and what was left of my Chakra was spread thin back over the rest of my body. My medium-brown ringlets had vanished. More than that, they were the complete _opposites _of what they should've been.

Lying flat in my clammy palm, resting easily like they had always been there, were countless strands of dead straight platinum bleach blonde hair. It was nearly white, like the Chakra that had burnt out.

Sasuke recovered while I was still frozen in place, and he took his leg away and let me lose my balance for half a second. I jumped and the hair flew out of my hand, but he was already in my face, grabbing my shoulders and turning me around.

It wasn't part of my plan, but it was still working.

I braced myself as he took both of my wrists in his hands, just as Hibachi had done, and I closed my eyes as I easily flew back with his momentum.

We stopped when my back hit something hard, and I opened my eyes to look straight into a dominating smile.

He thought he had won.

"Nice try," he said smugly, trying to hide the fact that he was out of breath. For whatever reason that he wanted to fight me in the first place, he looked like he had gotten what he came for.

However, I wasn't quite finished yet.

"That's funny, Sasuke." I smiled sarcastically, though it hurt the muscles in my face. His grin faded immediately, and he peered down at me like I was insane. "I didn't think that a Shinobi such as you could be beaten by something as simple as Clone Jutsu." And, because I had gained enough Chakra back to hear his thoughts again, I waited for the climax of his confusion and vanished into a cloud of fog.

CHIASA

It was funny, watching him stand there shocked for a minute. When my clone disappeared and some Chakra came back to me, it barely gave me any more strength.

However, it was easier to go downhill than up.

I was standing on a tree branch, overlooking the semi-clearing. Sasuke was still frozen, standing in front of the boulder that he had pushed my clone into.

_Oh Sasuke, _I thought to myself, fighting back laughter. _Didn't you know? When in battle, especially one of close range, _never _take your eyes off of your opponent._

Knowing that I couldn't wait too long, I lowered myself into a lunge and jumped down, speeding towards the Uchiha symbol on his back like a rocket.

He turned just in time for me to knock him over by pushing my whole weight on his shoulders with my hands.

As we were falling, I smiled tiredly into his eyes, seeing the fear and adrenaline displayed plainly in mine as they reflected off.

I had won.

When we hit the grass, I was forcing myself up to a plank with wobbly arms. It was a little awkward at first because I was literally on _top _of him, but any feeling at all ended after about a second.

It was the most bizarre thing that I had ever felt.

It was like there was this electric current running in between the two of us in an endless cycle. It circled through us, entering our bodies between my hands and his shoulders and the tips of my shoes and his lower legs, just below his knee caps.

I knew that he felt it too, whatever it was, because my shocked face was burning brightly in his mind and his expression was a clone of it.

My hair, wavy and dirty blonde, not getting the full impact of my Chakra from my clone, draped down on both sides of my face like a thick curtain. It almost reached down to his.

My body was going up and down with his breathing, and something about its sound relaxed me. It was wiping away the emptiness that I had felt after making the clone Jutsu, replacing it with something that I had never felt before.

"When did you…?" He breathed, trying to find the answer in my eyes somewhere. Suddenly, without my saying a word, he realized what I had done. "The Shuriken…!" It was all starting to add up; why I had pointlessly thrown the Shuriken, why I looked so tired as my clone ran towards him. The Shuriken were a diversion, and my clone was suffering because it was running on almost no Chakra, as it had just been created.

"But…" he continued, staring abstractly away from me with a scrutinizing look on his face. "Clones can't make physical contact, so… how…?" At this point, nothing would surprise me.

"I don't know," I said, so carefree that I didn't sound like myself.

We were back to the intense silence when I heard it.

It was low, almost undetectable with everything going on, but it was undoubtedly there. It was a tiny voice that came from extremely secured thoughts, and I didn't recognize it.

I went tense and I felt my pupils shrink. Sasuke was immediately alarmed by my face, and he was about to get up and react.

I silenced him, shaking my head, signaling for him to be very careful.

"We're being watched." I whispered.


	3. Truth

Chapter 3

Truth

NARUTO

My breath came in short, unpleasant gasps, even though it was probably the most amazing thing that I've ever felt.

As I lay there, out of breath on the dark, soft forest floor, I stared tiredly through the trees to the crescent moon. It was kind of funny to think that something as small as that could really be so big.

I smiled.

There was no way that anyone could deny my strength now.

If I had known that training and doing what I had just done would make me feel like this, I would've done it all the time. It was like I had never been sad at all, not once in my life. The whole village was cheering for me, and if I listened closely enough, I could hear them. They were pumping their fists in the air, throwing me up and down, chanting my name because I was just that awesome.

Chiasa was there, too.

Just as I thought her name, a light wind tugged mindlessly at my whiskers. Despite everything that was going on inside of me, I still felt a sharp pain inside of me at the sound of it in my head.

She'd be proud of me now though, right? I was a Ninja now, and Mizuki said so. I had done exactly what he had told me to do without fail. The scroll was even at my feet to prove it. We could be Shinobi together, like we had always dreamed. Plus, because of what I had just done, I'd be Hokage for sure. Then, she would definitely be proud of me.

I would have kept my promise, and that's more important than anything else.

If only I could show her the scroll... I could help her become as awesome as _me_!

_You can't tell anyone about it, though. _Mizuki's words rang in my head. _Not even Chiasa._

"Naruto…" Someone said in a deathly quiet, suppressed voice. I sat up straight as a reflex and looked around frantically. I didn't recognize the voice, but whoever it was sounded really, _really _pissed.

CHIASA

I couldn't breathe, obviously. It was lucky that I was alive at all- though I sounded like a dying animal, so there were really no promises.

The fresh smell of the forest was getting to my head, and I was dizzy. Every so often I'd have to stop and kneel down so that I didn't pass out, then check my lungs and pulse to make sure that I wasn't dead.

At this rate, I'd really miss graduation. I let out a soft groan at the thought of spending the rest of the night and all of tomorrow limping in a random direction.

I kind of wanted to scream, but who knew, maybe that would attract some _other _insane kid who would actually finish me off. I barely had it in me to walk, let alone use Ninjutsu.

My feet hardly made any sound against the grass. _That's right… _I remembered, stopping next to a tree and leaning on it with my hand.

_Sasuke. _

My deep breaths had become wheezes. I didn't care about him; I knew that for a fact. Why would I? He just attacked me.

Unfortunately for me, the feel of that weird spark was still lingering in my head. I had no idea what it was, but something about it kept forcing Sasuke into my head and I'd literally have to push him back out. By the end of the night, I would be insane.

I should've been worried about _survival_.

_What's wrong with me? _I thought tiredly, leaning my forehead on the arm that rested on the tree. It's bark was sharp and uncomfortable, but I didn't care. I doubted that I'd find much more comfort anywhere else anyways.

My hair was starting to turn brown again, and if I squinted hard enough, I could see a light curl forming at the tips. I didn't remember when it had started to change back, but I was pretty sure that it happened around the time that Sasuke and I walked away from each other.

We both got up steadily and tried to act like we didn't know anyone else was there; It might've been futile, but it was worth a try. Then, we nodded at each other and awkwardly walked away, catching our breath as we went.

Maybe he knew the way back, but I wasn't about to go follow him.

Apparently, I hadn't gone the way that our visitor was hiding. No one was following me right now, and of that I was sure. Sasuke might not have been so lucky, but he could've handled it better than I could. I shivered and almost fell over at the thought of being attacked by someone so quiet.

"You found me…" Someone was laughing in the distance. I stood upright with a jolt at the sound of his voice. Some energy started coming back to me- or maybe it was adrenaline- and let my head shoot up.

_Naruto_.

Damn it, would I ever be able to _rest_?

"And I've only learned one Jutsu!" I couldn't explain it, but I was trying to run towards him. _What's he talking about? _ My body was on fire, but I didn't care. He shouldn't be out here, no matter what the reason. The forest was only kind to those who have been welcomed by it- it was too dangerous for anyone but me.

He was probably an eighth of a mile away-not even. I could hear him like he was right next to me, but that was probably just because I was myself.

"Listen, listen! I'm gonna show you this amazing Jutsu that I learned, and then you're gonna let me graduate!" Could he possibly be talking to Iruka Sensei? I pushed myself forward as his voice got even clearer. I couldn't be far now- plus, it felt like if I went much farther, every bone in my body would break and I'd crumble to the floor on the spot.

"Isn't it true that I can graduate if I learn one of the Jutsu written here?"

You have no idea how confused I was.

When I was right there, hearing them as loudly as though I was the one speaking, I saw it.

From behind a taller, thick tree, I could see everything. Iruka Sensei was standing, towering above Naruto, looking so intimidating that he added an extra foot to his height. He was glaring down at him with a stern, yet confused look in his eyes.

Did he understand any of this?

Naruto was sitting on the grass lazily, with his goggles back on and dirt and sweat all over his clothes and face. He smiled widely and innocently up at Iruka Sensei, as though he didn't understand what was on his back.

Strapped around his shoulder, almost as tall as he was, was none other than the scroll of sealing. I recognized it immediately, but Naruto, obviously, didn't.

It was one of our village's most sacred possessions, sealed by the first Hokage himself. They said that it was a giant list of forbidden Jutsu, techniques that damage the body or defy the laws of nature.

They also made it very clear that it should never, _ever_ be opened.

NARUTO

"Who told you that?" Iruka Sensei's eyes bulged out of his head and his jaw dropped a little. He was probably impressed that I knew such an awesome secret. I hoped that he had at least brought my headband with him.

"Mizuki Sensei!" I yelled, a little impatiently, but still smiling. It was impossible not to be happy at that moment; I was almost officially a Ninja. "He told me about this scroll," I jumped around so that he could see the giant scroll on my back, "and this place…" I honestly didn't know what was so special about it. There was a small wooden house here, but it was so little that it was probably a shed. I didn't run into it when I was training, it was just kind of… there.

Iruka Sensei looked like he had just swallowed something disgusting. He stared past me, shaking almost as badly as Chiasa does.

Before I knew it, I was on the floor.

I could feel myself fly through the air, and pain coursed through my body as I landed on rock. My chest hurt, right where Iruka Sensei had pushed me down.

Wincing, I sat up to complain to him, but he wasn't there.

I felt the blood drain from my face as I turned to stare at the wall of the shed. He was there, sure enough, with Kunai and shuriken sticking through his skin, pinning him to the wall.

He had pushed me out of the way, and now he was covered in blood. CHIASA

_You must not breathe. _I had never been so scared in my entire life. There was an earthquake going on inside of me, making it hard for the air to ease through.

Maybe it was better that way; I would make too much sound if I hyperventilated.

I had sunk down to my knees at the edge of the tree, and I clamped a hand around my mouth to silence myself.

_You must not breathe. You must not breathe. _

My blood, which had just been near its boiling point, was frozen.

I was a statue. If I proved myself otherwise, I would die.

It was that simple.

Should I turn my head? _Could _I? Did I really want to see this? Shakily, I turned my head to the side and peered out into the clearing; I had to hold my breath to stifle a sob.

I could see my teacher, who I was mentally insulting just yesterday, bleeding against the wall.

And I felt like a monster.

There was another monster near me. I hadn't felt him before, but now it was as though he was hovering right next to me, breathing down my back.

Mizuki.

If I so much as twitched, he'd catch the movement in his peripheral vision. His thoughts were twisted and disturbingly content, and he was right over me.

He stood on a tree branch above my head.

I bit my tongue so that my teeth didn't chatter, eventually tasting blood.

Laughter. Sick, high pitched, venomous laughter, escaping from his throat. It was no different from Hibachi's; only deeper in pitch.

Why would he target Naruto, of all people?

There were two Demon-Wind Shuriken on his back. Just like regular Shuriken, except more than half my size.

"Naruto, would you give me that scroll?" He spoke enticingly through his menacing smile, and my heart skipped five beats just from hearing his voice. Naruto stared wide-eyed back and forth between Mizuki, who stood tall and confident, and Iruka Sensei, who unstuck himself from the wall with blood dripping from his mouth.

"Wait… wait a second…" He wasn't happy carefree Naruto anymore. No one, not even he, could be oblivious to this level of danger and murderous intent.  
"What's… going on?" He was pale. Not on my level, but way too pasty for him.

"Naruto…" Iruka Sensei was baring the pain to speak, but he didn't show it. He spoke loudly and clearly between breaths, making sure to let Naruto- and Mizuki- know that he was serious. "Don't… give him… that… scroll." Whenever he stopped talking, I felt my heart pound a hole through my chest. "There's… forbidden Ninjutsu… in it. It was… sealed. Mizuki… used you in order to get it for himself." The rest came out in a jumbled mess, but anger struck Naruto's face as soon as Iruka Sensei finished talking.

"What?" Naruto growled and glared at Mizuki, his glower scaring even me. A flame of outrage flickered inside of me too, but it wasn't enough to kill off my fear this time.

It was swallowed.

"Naruto…" Mizuki laughed, waving Iruka Sensei's words away and smiling arrogantly. "He's just afraid of you having power, so he wants the scroll for himself. Are you stupid? Why do you think you're the only one that he didn't pass? He even let your _sister _become a Ninja out of sympathy."

Everything froze.

All of the tension ceased for a second, leaving a wringing in my ears. The only sounds that lingered in between us were Mizuki's words, bouncing around in our brains.

_He even let your sister become a Ninja out of sympathy._

Sister? _Sister?_

No, I couldn't be Naruto's sister. Someone would've told us after all this time… Plus, there was no point in keeping it from us! I was just about to get up and scream. I wanted to yell at him for lying to us.

If Naruto was my brother, why hadn't I heard anyone thinking about it?

Just before my finger twitched, or before I gave the slightest movement, Mizuki shifted his weight.

I froze again.

_You coward, _I thought, spitting at myself. It didn't matter what I called myself, though, and I knew it.

At that point, not a single thing could move me.

The fear was pressing down on my bones, immobilizing me. 

"W-What…?" Naruto just stared at him, not knowing what to do. Slowly, he looked back at Iruka Sensei.

There was accusation in his eyes.

Something seemed to have made Iruka Sensei snap out of his shocked state, and anger sparked inside of him, filling him with a new, fierce energy.

"Mizuki!" He screamed. I nearly cringed away from the raise in his voice. He was still a teacher, and there was a chastising tone to his words.

Always rookie instructor Iruka, right up to the end.

Mizuki just stood there and laughed again. The sound almost made my body revolt against the fear prison that it was held under.

Almost.

"I'll tell you the truth, Naruto. I'll tell you why he _really _doesn't want you holding that scroll." Iruka Sensei looked like someone had turned him into stone.

"Idiot! Shut up!" Nothing made any sense, and I honestly just wanted to scream.

I stayed silent in the shadows.

"Are you listening to me, Naruto? Twelve years ago, on October tenth, the Third Hokage made a law." I perked up a little, listening to every word that he said.

October tenth was my birthday. Apparently, it was Naruto's too.

"Stop it!" Iruka Sensei roared, but Mizuki wasn't fazed. There was nothing Iruka Sensei could do now, because his wounds were too deep. Whatever it was that Mizuki was about to tell us was torturing him.

He could only beg, and Mizuki's smile became evil because of it.

"A… a law?" Naruto looked more horrified than confused, and his big blue eyes grew to the size of his face.

"That's right, and everyone besides you and Chiasa know about it." It felt like something had disconnected. I should've been raging, and the rage should've eaten the fear… but I couldn't move. Every time he said something else, I just grew more and more afraid.

And, at that moment, Mizuki's thoughts were cut off, and I couldn't hear him anymore.

_What's… going on? _I didn't have control of my own body, I couldn't even feel myself breathing. Somehow, I didn't even have the courage to look at anyone's face.

"W-what was it?" The pure, innocent curiosity of his voice made me want to cry. My head was spinning, and my heart was throbbing… but I couldn't hear it. There wasn't a single sound. For the first time in my entire life, I felt deaf.

The silence wasn't the best thing for me at that moment. I barely heard Mizuki say the words as I started to slip into my subconscious and let the world go black.

The words that would change my life forever.

"The law was that no one could tell either of you that _you _are the spirit of the Nine-Tailed Fox!" It was so random and unexpected that I actually came alive again.

With a breath of life, I spun my head back as quickly as possible to see them.

I had to have been dreaming.

The Nine-Tailed fox was just a people that believed in it made me sick.

And yet…

It explained everything. The glares, the hatred, the the Nine-Tails' attack on our birthday, how sweet and happy Naruto could, on occasion, scare the shit out of me…

But what did that have to do with me? Did they hate me because I was his sister? Were they really _that_ cruel?

Naruto looked up at Mizuki, not understanding what he had just heard. I didn't blame him; I was still trying to process it myself.

"You're the demon that killed Iruka's parents and destroyed our Village!" My face got hot with blood, but I was still too afraid to move.

_No… it's not true. It can't be… _There were no such thing as legends. Things like this just didn't happen.

Even as he heard this, he still looked so shocked and innocent that I wanted to kill Mizuki right then and there. Maybe, had I been braver, I would have.

There was no way that those big, blameless eyes could have ever been cold enough to kill someone.

"MIZUKI!" Iruka Sensei shrieked, pulling away from the wall so hard that his undershirt ripped. Mizuki ignored him.

"The Village has been lying to you for your whole _life._ Didn't you find it weird at all how everyone hated you? How _Iruka_ hates you?" A vein popped out in Naruto's forehead, and he immediately lowered himself into a lunge.

"No!" He roared, and my chest burned again. His light blue Chakra surrounded him, and he bared his teeth like a fox.. "No, no, no, no, no!"

"Die, Kyuubi!" Kyuubi, the Nine-Tailed Fox. That's what Naruto was to him, and to everyone else. Before I could think about it any more than that, he reached towards the Demon Wind Shuriken on his back and threw one straight at Naruto.

_Move! _I screamed at myself. If I did nothing, then Naruto, my best friend, would die. _Come on, move! _Every time my heart surged, the edges of my vision went black.

I didn't even have the movement in me to look away as the blades soared towards him.

_Move! _I couldn't do it, I was going to let him die, because I couldn't do it. I was a coward, and he would have to suffer for it.

Naruto had fallen on the floor, and he was struggling to back up; wiggle his way out of his own death.

No one was there to save him, like they were there to save me. No one was willing to die for him, like they were willing to die for me.

"Naruto!" Iruka Sensei wailed, "get down!"

Somehow, I found the strength to close my eyes just before the sound of metal hitting flesh echoed through the forest, and the smell of blood filled the air.

NARUTO

In my entire life, I had never come close to dying before. Whenever the subject came up, Chiasa and I both got a bit uncomfortable, but I had never really gotten it.

Death was just a fact of life until you really knew it. My parents died before my eyes were open, so they were never really real to me. I knew that they were alive at some point, but, like death, I never really got them.

At that moment, when I was on the verge of dying, a million thoughts flashed through my head.

If I died here, I'd have never made things right with Chiasa. My sister and I would've ended with us fighting. I'd never know her as real family.

If I died here, I'd never be Hokage. I'd break my promise, and her trust.

If I died here, no one would have ever acknowledged me.

I wasn't sure, but maybe it was an act of cowardice when I turned away so that I didn't have to see my reflection in the blade as it killed me.

I buried my face in the grass and covered my head with my hands. I could feel my heart hammering down as the metal got closer.

If I died here, I'd die a demon.

The blades stopped _swooshing _through the air, and the sound that they made when they hit the body echoed around the forest.

But I didn't feel anything.

_Am I… dead? _ Did I somehow not feel the Shuriken? What would I see if I opened my eyes?

Slowly, I let my them crack open just enough so that they were slits. It was still dark, but there was a shadow hanging over me. I looked straight up to see what had happened, and then gasped and froze on the floor.

There, pushing himself off the ground, right above me with blood dripping from his lip and a Demon Wind Shuriken stabbed into the red swirl on his back, was Iruka Sensei.

He had shielded me, and taken the hit instead.

Suddenly, he hacked and droplets of his blood fell on my cheek. They reeked of iron, but I was too shocked to notice. I just stared at him with my mouth hanging open.

He _hated_ me. I was sure of it. That's why he didn't pass me. I killed his parents… The inside of my chest swelled up. He was supposed to hate me. What was he doing?

"W-Why…?" I choked out, fighting back tears. He'd risk his life for me? The demon that everyone hated? That he despised with everything he had? His bottom student?

His eyes were dark as he answered me, and it looked like he was fighting to stay alive.

"Because… we're… the same." He grimaced and cringed. The spike must've been drilling a hole in his spine.

For the first time in seven years, tears started to form at the bases of my eyes, and I was crying.

"After my parents died…" He started. My throat swelled up inside, and I couldn't breathe. _After his parents died… _Because of me. "No one cared about me. I was at the bottom of my class, because I wanted people to see me."

He wasn't just my teacher anymore. He wasn't just the one who was there to yell at me when I broke the law. No; he was more than that.

He was the one who bought me Ramen, not because he had to or because he owed me, but because he wanted to.

He was the one who showed me sympathy, and acknowledged me when no one else would.

He was the one who took a Demon Shuriken for me, no matter who I was or what I did to him.

He was the same as me, and I could be proud to admit it now.

Was this what having a father was supposed to be like?

"If I wasn't constantly pulling pranks or fucking up a Jutsu on purpose… no one would see me. It was so hard." _I know. _I wanted to whisper. _I know exactly what you mean. _

Suddenly, his face puckered up and his whole body started shaking.

He was trying not to cry, just like me.

"Right, Naruto?" He sobbed. This time, it was tears that fell on my face. "You feel alone, right? And It's agonizing… right?" His voice broke on the last word. I was getting all wet, but I didn't care. He got it. He got it even more than Chiasa did. I really wasn't alone at that moment, not at all.

"I'm so sorry, Naruto…" He whispered with pain-filled eyes. "If I had been more like a teacher to you... maybe you could've been happier." My lips trembled. And on top of all of that, he was dying for me.

I was about to cry when laughter distracted me. I looked passed Iruka Sensei and up at him, then shivered at his blood-thirsty smile. I had almost forgotten that he was there.

"Don't make me laugh!" The bastard was already laughing. "Iruka hates you! You _and _your demon little sister! He just doesn't want you getting your hands on that scroll!" CHIASA It hit me like another blow to the head.

Demon.

Was that what I was? Was that what my fate was condemned to? Was that why they hated me, even before I met Naruto?

I was shaking and sobbing, knowing that it was inevitable to try and stop myself, but trying to keep myself silent nonetheless.

What _was _I? Of all the things that bothered me, the worst was that I didn't even know myself. I didn't know who the Uzumakis were. I didn't know who my parents were. Before tonight, I didn't even know that my Chakra was white or that I had a brother.

Then there was the killer: I was a demon, and I never knew it.

"Naruto!" Iruka Sensei called, panicked. Through a countless number of blurry tears, I struggled to see what was happening.

My heart stopped; he was gone.

I could hear his footsteps growing fainter and fainter as he ran away, and Iruka Sensei's thoughts grew more and more pained.

"Naruto!" He was practically crying on the floor with his hand held out, as though he could reach far enough to grab him and pull him back.

I clapped my hand over my mouth again and listened closely as Mizuki jumped down in a flash, still laughing. He walked towards Iruka Sensei with a spring in his step.

"He's not going to open up to you, Iruka." His tone was condescending as he looked in the distance after him. "He's a demon. You should know him by now!"

_No, _I wanted to scream. _You're wrong. You don't know anything about him._ I was having enough trouble stifling my cries.

"Those were the eyes of the Kyuubi, Iruka. You know you saw it too." I cringed and scrunched my eyes shut, trying not to believe him.

Naruto was not a demon, no matter who said he was.

"No…" Iruka Sensei whispered, grabbing the Shuriken in his back and yanking it out. It started gushing blood, but he didn't even wince. "You're wrong!" As he threw it, Mizuki's smile grew wider. He simply stepped to the side of its path, and it stabbed into the bark of the tree that I hid behind.

I jumped as some half-yellow leaves fell to my feet.

"Naruto… is not a demon." Mizuki chuckled in disbelief.

"You can think what you want. I'll come back for you later!" He didn't even give Iruka Sensei a chance to react. I clenched my other hand, and ended up with a fist full of dirt.

When I couldn't hear his thoughts anymore. I freed my mouth and a gust of air flow out of it.

"I-I won't let you-!" But my sobs cut him short.

_Oh no. _He thought. He recognized my voice. Slowly, he stood up and began to walk towards me.

I wanted to talk to him like a normal person, but instead I got in the fetal position and buried my face in my knees.

Then, I started wailing.

It wasn't fair- what had Naruto or I ever done to deserve this? Why did our parents have to die? Why did we have to be monsters?

My eyes were getting soaked just as two warm arms wrapped around my shoulders. I gasped but didn't pull away, and I opened my eyes to find myself in Iruka Sensei's grasp.

"I'm so sorry, Chiasa." He said, over and over again. It felt so warm at that moment that I wrapped my arms around his neck and buried my face in his chest so that I could hide my tears. It was almost like what Naruto felt like before; like having a Dad, I think.

No adult had ever comforted me before, so I wouldn't know.

He kept apologizing and trying not to cry himself until I calmed down enough to talk like intelligibly. I let go of him instantly, and he did the same. He still stared worriedly into my face though, like a nervous teacher afraid of his students failing.

"Are you okay?" He asked finally. I raised an eyebrow at him. What kind of a dumbass fucking shot to hell question was _that_? He laughed, and smiled a crooked, sad smile that didn't reach his eyes.

"I just want to know who the hell I am." I looked desperately at the ground, as though I'd find my answer there. He looked truly apologetic as he sighed, and he pulled his eyebrows together and smiled at me with the same smile again.

"Chiasa, you have to go back to the Village. I have to save Naruto, and I can't leave you hear alone or take you with me. It's too dangerous either way." I wanted to laugh, but I also wanted to cry. "Danger" wasn't really important at this point.

"Iruka Sensei," I said in a respectful tone, "I can't go anywhere. I'm almost completely out of Chakra and I can't even see straight."He looked innocently confused, and I didn't blame him. Before he could ask me why I was so worn out, I started to explain my day to him.

"... You can see what that would do to a person, clearly."

_Yeah, an incredibly weak person._

He looked sympathetic towards my annoyed face. Hibachi was nothing special, but Sasuke was the number one rookie Genin as of today.

He wasn't going to do anything about it, because he knew that he'd die here before he could get his hands on either of them. So instead he just sighed, frustrated, and stared into space.

"I guess you'll have to stay here then." He looked pained, as though he could've done something to save me from this. The truth was, no matter what I did, I would probably die.

"That won't work well with your plan." He looked at me like I had five heads, probably freaked out as hell. I had almost forgotten that he didn't know I could hear him.

But he didn't have time to be curious.

"Naruto has the scroll, remember?" He looked at me reluctantly, and I smiled painfully back at him. Now, heknew what Iwas thinking.

After thinking for a while about this, he finally sighed in defeat. The more time we spent arguing, the closer Mizuki got to Naruto.

"You know you'll probably die if you help me, right?" I closed my eyes, ignoring the fear that stirred up again, and nodded, pulling together what was probably my last fake smile.

When he didn't say anything for a while, I looked back up at him. Surprisingly, he was smiling regretfully back at me.

"I'm sorry, Chiasa." His voice was gentle, but I could see how badly he was hurting. "I've failed you as a teacher." I chuckled humorlessly. He really didn't understand, did he?

I wanted to do this.

"Iruka Sensei," I sighed, smiling ruefully at the ground. He raised his eyebrows sadly, waiting for me to continue. "If I'm not enough of a Ninja to risk my life for my own _brother_, then I've failed you as a student." His eyes widened, telling me that he knew that my heart was set. He nodded at me this time, silently telling me that he was determined.

"Do you have enough Chakra left for one last Jutsu?"

NARUTO

I didn't even pay attention to the trees blowing by me. They didn't matter. When I was sure that neither of them could possibly be following me, I hid behind one. Breathlessly, I took the scroll off of my back and clutched it into my chest.

I couldn't believe that just yesterday, I was drawing on Hokage faces.

For the first time in almost my whole life, I wasn't hyper at _all_. I was just scared.

I leaned back against the tree and groaned when my head hit the bark. I was actually _catching _my breath.

Then there were the countless problems running around in my head that were, like most things, too hard to focus on.

Was Mizuki telling the truth? Was I really the Nine-Tailed Fox? That didn't make any sense. Don't you think I'd _know _if I was the Kyuubi? Wouldn't I have some idea that I killed the fourth Hokage and tried to destroy an entire Village?

And even if I _was_, how did I turn into a kid?

My head started throbbing; not from banging it against the tree, but from thinking too hard.

Instead of reading too much into things, I let subjects come and go as they please. They popped into my head and hurried back out, not being followed by a second thought until one image seemed to stay there.

Iruka Sensei's face.

Of all the people to sympathize with! My idiot homeroom teacher!

Was _he _telling the truth? Did he really understand me like he said he did? If he didn't, why would he throw himself in front of a giant shuriken for me? To get the scroll?

What was so important about this scroll anyways? Why did Mizuki tell me about it?

Did _he _want the scroll?

"Ow!" I called out, grabbing my forehead. Sighing, I gently leaned my head back on the tree again and closed my eyes.

_Quit thinking, _I thought. I was starting to remind myself of Chiasa…

I winced.

Chiasa.

Would she ever know that she was my sister? If I died, would she ever find out? How upset would she be if in our last moments together, we were fighting?

Somewhere or another, Iruka Sensei's face had morphed into hers. She was smiling at me with her weirdly blondish eyebrows pulled together, giving me that worried look that she almost always wore when she talked to me.

I might've been imagining it, but did Mizuki say that she was the younger one? She really didn't seem like it. If anything, sometimes she was more like my mom than my sister.

If I really thought about it, though, I could disagree with that. I remembered when the two of us stood up for each other; comforted each other; when I sat and thought to myself, _'I really don't know what having a mom would feel like, but maybe this is what it's like having a sister.'_

When I realized how many times I had done that, a lump sat in my throat.

That was exactly what it was like.

And I didn't know 'till now, when it was already too late.

She wasn't my mom, or my older sister, or even my younger one. It didn't matter when we were born. We were twins; equals, and I found that I actually really liked that.

_Too bad, _I thought, _too bad I couldn't have found that out sooner. _

I was interrupted with two crashes and thumps to follow them.

And I jumped, just like my twin would have.

Quickly, I turned around. I didn't come out from behind the tree, but I saw enough. Someone went skidding across the floor, but all I could see from him was that he was a tall, tan-skinned brunette.

_Iruka Sensei? _Had Mizuki stayed there and started fighting him while he was in _that _condition? I looked at the person who stood, standing across from him. The one who had knocked him down.

Instead of Mizuki, who I thought should obviously be there, the person that I _did _see made my eyes shoot so wide open that they nearly fell out of my head.

I'm not kidding.

There, staring Iruka Sensei down with a smile on his face, was… me.

Scroll, orange jumpsuit, and all.

Just like always.

Except, I hadn't used that Jutsu… so what the hell was going on?

"I don't… get it… Naruto…" Iruka Sensei panted, pushing himself up. His arms wobbled as he tried to sit up straight, and there was blood dripping from his lip.

_That's not me! _I wanted to yell, but something- I have no idea what it was- told me to shut up and watch.

So, for whatever reason, I did.

"How did you know… that I wasn't Iruka?" I was so messed up that I had to blink to make sure that I had heard that right.

Even _I _knew that that made no sense.

"Because…" The fake me smiled and laughed, staring at the puffy cloud that was Iruka Sensei just a second ago. "_I'm _Iruka." Just as steam covered him, the fog around Iruka Sensei cleared up and left Mizuki in its place.

I swear, I was about to explode.

Mizuki stared Iruka Sensei straight in the eyes and smiled as he emerged.

Iruka Sensei still had the scroll, which wasn't the best for my confusion.

"Oh?" Mizuki smiled at him. "What's in it for _you_? What do _you_ get for protecting the kid who killed your parents?"

It stung like that moment when something really hard hits you in the chest and all the wind gets knocked out of you, disorienting you and making it impossible to breathe.

I wouldn't do something like that! I had never killed anyone in my life!

Right?

"I'm not gonna let some jackass like you get that scroll." I clutched it tighter. That couldn't have been all that he cared about… No one can speak from their heart like that and be lying.

Could they?

"You're an idiot, Iruka. Naruto's exactly the same as me." _No… _I shook my head, holding back tears again. _That's not true… _"Anyone who has that scroll can do absolutely anything they want. There's no way that that monster won't use it how he should!" Iruka Smiled at him, taking his scroll from off of his back.

"He can't do anything with it as long as I have it." Mizuki roared with laughter. Did Iruka Sensei really have the scroll? Were there two scrolls? Did one of us have the fake?

"How stupid do you think I am? You're pathetic, Iruka. Not even _I _would use her for something like _this. _You should have left her behind that tree." My whole body turned stiff, and my face turned into ice.

What was he _talking _about?

"The Kyuubi's going to destroy the village just like any other demon would, and you know it, Iruka! He has the real scroll, and damn it, he'll use it!" Mizuki wasn't smiling anymore- he was really mad. He even had to catch his breath as Iruka Sighed and smiled, putting whatever that scroll was down next to him.

"You're right." He said finally.

That hurt even worse.

It was true. Iruka Sensei really hated me because of what I was, and he never cared about me at all. He never had, and he never would.

"The Kyuubi would, but Naruto is different." With that, in a second, all of my pain disappeared. It wasn't gone, it was just numb; but Iruka Sensei was doing it. He was standing up for me.

He really did care.

"He's an amazing student who works as hard as he can and still manages to fall on his face." How the hell did he manage to smile?"He's been isolated, sent to the depths of solitude and back, but he knows the meaning of human suffering. He knows pain like I do, but he can face it with more confidence than I could ever dream of. He's not the Demon Fox Spirit; He's Naruto Uzumaki!"

It was so cliché. _So _cliché. Yet, no matter how corny it sounded, tears started streaming down my face and I was hugging the scroll instead of digging my nails into it.

"That's why I wanted to protect him, Mizuki. Chiasa… I'm sorry, it looks like it's over." An electric shock went through me, and I was immediately on my feet, staring in the other direction wide-eyed.

Chiasa.

I heard a _'poof!' _from behind me, then a light-hearted laughter.

I had never heard it sound so care-free.

CHIASA

I couldn't move; not because I was afraid, but because I had no Chakra left to do so. I couldn't even shiver, and it took my breath away just to form the easy-coming laughter that I was forcing out of my throat.

To be honest, I was okay with it. Death was one thing that I had never really been afraid of.

I had never pictured myself dying in such a noble way, though. It was sick, but I always thought that I wouldn't be able to take it anymore and just end it myself… or die on a mission or something.

Dying for Naruto, though… that was the best way that I could do it. I could be happy with myself in the end, proud that I made such a great use for myself.

Maybe that's why I could laugh so easily now. I had never been this happy, even though I was on the verge of death. My last chuckle came out in a forced wheeze, followed by a few coughs. I still smiled at him though, meeting his blood-thirsty dark grey eyes though the hair that covered my face like a curtain.

It was dry, dead straight, and almost white, but Mizuki didn't seem shaken by the obvious change.

I think he was smiling, but I couldn't tell because I looked at the world sideways. I rolled onto my back, met Iruka Sensei's wistful eyes for just a second, then closed mine, still smiling.

I didn't think I had ever been this happy.

"You are both just… so gullible!" I heard Mizuki distantly, and the sound of him dislodging the Shuriken from his back echoed around in my head. _This is it… _I thought for the second time today. _This is _really _it… _I added.

I hear his loud footsteps as he ran towards us, and whispered to myself, trying to make my voice loud enough for anyone else to hear.

These were my last words, after all.

"Mizuki…" I breathed, "stay… away… from my… brother." It was almost sad that there were so many things that I'd never know, like who was watching me and Sasuke, what that connection was…

I'd never have the forgiveness that I wanted, but at least, in the next life... maybe I'd get it there.

"I was going to kill you both later, but I change my mind!" _Get on with it, already…_

But, as it always did, something happened.

One second, I was accepting death from Mizuki's footsteps, and the next, those footsteps were gone.

They vanished with the sound of someone getting punched.

_Naruto?! _Iruka Sensei gasped.

I could hear him. How was I getting my Chakra back?

My eyes flew open and I was suddenly throwing my arms at the ground, pushing myself up. I was only just escalated, but it was enough. I could see him.

There he was.

Mizuki had skid across the floor again, just like he had when I was a scroll, but Naruto was still standing. The Shuriken had flown out of Mizuki's hands and into the sky, cutting a few branches down as it soared.

I tried not to think about that too much.

And, right in the middle of the array of leaves that fluttered to the ground, was Naruto.

He was still hunched over from knocking Mizuki to the ground, but he was pushing himself up with the scroll. His shoulders moved up and down with his heavy breathing, showing me how much it took for him to get there, how hard this was for him…

And how much he didn't care.

"Hah! You surprised me there, freak." The muscles in my chest tightened at the word. He had been called that before, but now… now it was worse.

Now that I knew.

"If you lay… another hand on either of them… _I'll kill you!_"

And there was silence again.

I could only stare, dumbstruck at this boy who was more of a Ninja than I would ever be.

How could _anyone _have so much natural bravery? Especially someone related to someone like me. He saved us… and, knowing him, probably without even thinking about it..

I envied him so much.

Out of everything that had happened in the past two days, this took the breath out of me more than anything else.

This…this was… unbelievable.

I was ready to die for him, and he saved me. He had saved me so many times… in any way you can think of.

One day, I would save him. Right there, I promised myself that I would.

I'd die for him someday, I was sure of it.

As I stared at his back, his growl rang in my ears and I remembered the words that it had formed.

"_If you lay… another hand on either of them… _I'll kill you!" If I forgot everything I ever knew, I'd remember that sentence word for word, breath for breath.

"Oh, really?" Mizuki burst out laughing again. "I could kill you with one punch, demon fox!" An arm suddenly reached out in front of me, and I jumped. I didn't calm down until I realized that it was Iruka Sensei's, and he was only blocking me.

"W-what-?" I couldn't have been audible, but he didn't even look like he was paying attention. He was looking forward with pride in his eyes and a real smile on his face.

"Let's stay here and watch Naruto, now." His voice was so happy, but I didn't understand him...

Until I realized my position.

Somehow, I had sat up straight and started to lean forward. I was even clawing my fingers into the dirt and squeezing so tightly that my fists hurt.

Stand back and watch, just like I had told Naruto to do. Was my Mind Jutsu strong enough to get to him, or was he just ignoring his "instinct?"

Instead of explaining myself, telling him that I hadn't even realized how angry I was, I took a deep breath, sat back, and nodded.

"Right." I looked forward again; Mizuki was still cracking himself up.

"Why don't you try, then?" Naruto asked, making a cross with the middle and index fingers.

I blinked to make sure that I was seeing straight.

A hand seal? What had Naruto been doing with that scroll?

Training?

Is that why he was so dirty?

"I'll strike you back a thousand fold!" If my eyes could've opened any wider, believe me, they would've.

I knew what this Jutsu was.

"Show me what you can do, Kyuubi!" Their positions were reversed; Mizuki was yelling, and Naruto was smiling..

Mizuki should not have said that.

Naruto chuckled. "Shadow Clone Jutsu!"

I knew it.

I gasped with Iruka Sensei, but I still knew it.

I can honestly say, however, that I wasn't expecting what happened next.

Typically, when someone used the Shadow Clone Jutsu, as we learned in school, they made maybe seven clones if they were really good, just like I made seven regular clones for the final exams.

Naruto had made hundreds.

Shadow Clones were much stronger than regular clones. They could actually make physical contact with a real person. Even though they were such a strong Jutsu, they used up a dangerous amount of Chakra. Enough to kill you.

That's why they were forbidden; sealed away in that scroll.

Naruto should be dead after doing this, yet here he stood literally all around me.

His Shadow Clones were perfect replicas, and they went so far back that a few of them disappeared into the darkness. For me, it was hard to imagine anyone who would really stand a good chance against this. No matter where I looked, pretty much all I saw was Naruto.

I was looking around, goggling at the Narutos past Iruka Sensei's face when I felt a hand on my other shoulder.

I jumped and spun my head around to find myself face to face to what may or may not have been a Shadow Clone. He was crouched down to a squat to be eye level with me, and he smiled his normal, happy Naruto smile.

It was like we weren't even in a life threatening situation.

Not taking his hand off of my shoulder, he started laughing. It wasn't an easy laugh, but it wasn't forced either. It was a sneaky laugh.

A Naruto laugh.

"Say… Say, Chiasa…" When his smile widened- I didn't think it was possible, but it did- the Shadow clones rushed past him, making a wind that blew my hair even more in my face. "Now you're the one making _me _worried, believe it!" Before I could even respond, he was on his feet and running away from me.

At first, I stared after him with my mouth hanging open, but then I thought twice.

"It's not easy being the worried one, is it, Naruto?" I whispered. "It really gets your heart going, ya know?" A natural smile broke out across my face, and it stayed there even when I realized it.

That one was the real Naruto. The one who had just awed me yet again was the real thing.

My 'ya know' was like Naruto's 'believe it.' I only said it when I was really happy and this smile spread across my face.

So, even as Mizuki's shrieks filled the air, I started to laugh a little, and I felt the dimples in my cheeks stand out.

That one was definitely real, because only my Naruto could do that.

NARUTO

"Can I open my eyes yet, Sensei?" He said he wanted to give something to me, so I had walked over to him and found myself blindfolded.

So typical.

"Okay, you can take it off now, Naruto." I ripped it of my face and it fell to the ground with a _clank_, as though it was made of metal. I took a good look at it and realized what it was; Chiasa's headband. Before I could pick it up for her and apologize, she had already grabbed it and was putting it back in her pocket.

I looked at them both very carefully, because I was clearly missing something.

Chiasa was standing there smiling at me, and her weird white hair was starting to turn blonde in the sunlight. Her eyes were closed and her hands were behind her back, but that wasn't what I should've been focusing on.

My goggles were in her back pocket, but there was still something on my forehead.

The sun had just come up.

Confused, I looked at Iruka Sensei who gave me the same smile. He was almost as messed up as Chiasa; there was dirt all over him, his clothes were ripped… he wasn't even wearing his headband.

That's when it hit me.

"Congratulations…" He whispered, "on your graduation."


	4. Konohamaru

Chapter 4

Konohamaru

NARUTO

Some days I woke up to the shining sun and said to myself, '_today, I am going to fuck with somebody.'_

Especially when Chiasa wasn't there to stop me.

Apparently, once you become a Ninja, you have to get your picture taken. It's things like this that make me really wonder and think deeply about the factors of that statement. Who the_ fuck _was running our village?

I was actually pretty upset when I woke up that day. As we were walking back to the Village the night before, Chiasa had collapsed on us.

It kind of killed the mood.

Iruka Sensei said he was going to take her to the hospital, and he told me to go home.

I didn't, obviously.

We walked there in silence, through the forest and all the way back to the village. Nobody turned to watch us as we walked down the street; It was like we didn't exist to them. It was such a great step up from where we were before, when we'd walk along the side and everyone would glare at us until we got out of their sight.

Aren't Leaf Villagers just so warm and welcoming?

When she went up to her hospital room, I stood there wondering whether I should go with her or go home.

They told me to beat it, so I left.

On days like these, when I just really want to ruin someone's day, it usually meant that I had nothing better to do.

My solution?

Make my own entertainment.

Luckily for me, entertainment came and woke me up first thing in the morning, just walking up to my house and knocking on the door. With a trip to the paint store, I could easily get a hold of someone and annoy the absolute shit out of them.

Unfortunately for my photographer, today was his day.

"It's more like a work of art," I smiled. "Work of art" was an understatement. It was beautiful.

Now I sat in an almost empty academy room, kicking my legs in an old, wobbly wooden chair across from the Old Man Hokage himself.

He mumbled to himself in his scratchy pothead voice, looking back and forth from my masterpiece to it's amazing model, yours truly.

"At first I couldn't decide how to look," I explained, laughing. I stared at the giant ass pipe in his mouth and knew that he was just as crazy as I was. I had to admit, it was comforting knowing that I wasn't the only one. "It took me three hours to decide. It paid off, though. Doesn't it look great?" Finally, he put the paper down, looked me in the eye, and puffed out a smoke cloud.

"Take it again," he said. I gaped at him.

The Third Hokage was a smoking, crotchety old man with moles all over his face. In other words, he was in no position to tell me my pictures were bad.

My face was so hot that I thought I was actually on fire.

"What?!" _Stupid old man, _I thought. _ He has no idea what the hell he's doing. _He didn't even have the decency to look me in the face. He just closed his eyes and faced downward… that bastard.

"Take it again," he repeated himself. God, I hated old people.

"Stop saying that!" I was on my feet before I knew it. I could feel my own breathing as I glared at him, shooting daggers at his stupid pointy Hokage hat.

_That's my hat, _I thought, clenching my fists. _And your about to give it to me, old man. _I weaved a hand seal in a blur, too fast for him to stop me.

"Transform!" My Chakra swarmed inside of me, stretching out my muscles, pulling curves around my waist. _You're dead, you dumb smoking bitch. Believe it! _

You should've seen his face.

His eyes bulged out of his head, and his jaw fell open. The pathetic Chunin next to him looked like he didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

"Oh… Lord Hokage…." I breathed, blowing him a kiss. Before I knew it, blood shot straight out of his nose and he was falling out of his chair.

Oh, how I loved being a naked woman; It was too bad his hat stayed on.

The steam surrounded me as soon as I let the Jutsu go, transforming me back into myself.

I was laughing so hard I couldn't breathe. It was so bad that I could only point as he reoriented himself and wiped his nose with his old man hanky.

Ladies and gentleman, _this _was who was running our village.

"The _Sexy Jutsu… _That's quite an… _interesting _technique." Great choice of words, geezer. Really. You floor me. I could hear what he was really saying, anyways: _well played, Naruto. Well played. _

I sat back down satisfactorily. My work here was done.

After another painful few seconds of the Chunin awkwardly shifting his weight as the old man and I glared at each other, the Hokage stood up straighter and squinted his eyes at my forehead.

The poor blind bastard.

"By the way, Naruto… where's your headband?" I clamped my hands around my goggles instinctively, protecting them from his scrutiny. He didn't understand me at all, did he?

_Yeah, that's right. My goggles _are _cooler than your hat. Some day, these goggles will have that red symbol on them. They'll say Hokage and show the world who I am. You'll see. _

"I'm not wearing it until graduation. It might get scratched." I'd die if anything ever happened to that headband. Iruka Sensei's… If anyone ever scratched it, I might've had to kill them. To my surprise, the old man didn't sigh at me.

"Well, that's fine." _Damn right it is. _"But the Ninja Registration form is a very important document, held in very high regard by our Village." Did he honestly think, from the bottom of his old and rotting heart, that I gave a shit? At _all _? As he launched into his lecture, I dozed off.

_Just think of more important things, _I told myself, _and it'll be like he's not even there. _What was important to me? What did I want to do more than anything at that very moment?

I pictured the wooden ramen stand, so tall and welcoming to anyone who walked by. I could practically taste the chicken broth and it's steam that made my way up my nose, drifting down my throat…

"Why do you want to look like this?" I snapped out of my fantasy and stared him in the face. Then, I lost my appetite. It took me a second to realize that he was talking to me.

Why did he _think _I wanted to look like that? Why did _he _want to look like a stupid, perverted _cone_ head that had no idea what he was doing?

"Because! Why the hell do you think I care about that stupid form, anyways?" I was a Ninja, and I knew it. So did he. I honestly didn't see the need for a stupid sheet of paper to tell me who I was. Everyone else did that well enough with their freaking glares.

My train of thought got cut off when the sliding wood door flew open.

"Old man!" Someone screamed. Their voice was even higher then mine! When I looked over to see who it was, though, I couldn't believe my eyes. "Prepare to die!" He was eight, at most. The only thing that could've possibly made him even a little tall was the giant, spiked up pony tail that stuck one and a half feat out from his big, round, melon head.

"I'm gonna be the Fifth Hokage, you asshole!" He started running towards him, puffing out his cheeks and tripping over his own feet with a Shuriken in his hand that may or may not have been made out of cardboard.

I scratched my head.

When he fell through the air and landed on his face, I had no words for him.

_What the hell am I looking at? _He started whimpering. This was the dumbest, most pathetic looking thing that I had ever seen. There was a shiny white helmet on his head that, with his head shape, must've been custom made. I have to say, it contrasted well with the blue sheet tied around his neck to flow behind him like a cape.

Damn, I wish _I_ could think I was important.

He curled into a ball on the floor, buried his face in his hands, and started moaning.

Sometimes things happened in this Village that made me want to stand up and stand up and say: _all right, that's it. I'm moving._

This would be one of those things.

As if that wasn't enough, the funniest thing that I have ever seen, to this day, came rushing through the door, out of breath and ready to keel over. As soon as he saw the kid on the floor, he gasped.

I could only stare.

He was a tall, scrawny, awkward looking man, wearing the tightest jumpsuit that I have ever seen. There was a bandana wrapped around his head that worked as his headband, and he wore these little, circular sunglasses that made him look like he had small, beet-black eyes.

Looking at him made me want to throw up.

"Honorable grandson!" His face was pale as he wheezed. Everything about him just _screamed _mama's boy.

I squinted my eyes at him as the kid pushed himself up, glaring at everything in the room.

"This was a trap! Who set this?!" _What the hell is with this kid? _I thought, raising an eyebrow at him.

"Are you alright, Honorable Grandson?! Let me assure you that there are absolutely no traps here…" The guy was just all _over _him. At first, the kid started turning his head towards Old Man Hokage.

But then his eyes stopped on me.

"_You!_" He snapped, climbing to his feet. "_You _did this to me!" When Mama's Boy realized that he wasn't looking at him or the Hokage, he followed his gaze and started staring at me too.

His was differed, though. _His_ stare was arrogant and condescending, and I knew exactly what he was thinking. _I know who _that _is. That's the Kyuubi _freak.

Well fuck you, Mama's Boy.

"Why are you just standing there?!" The kid screamed, walking over to me. "You tripped me, didn't you?!" The vein in my head popped out again, and this annoying, sweltering heat crawled up my throat.

I grabbed him by the neck of his sheet and pulled him up to my level. He didn't look scared; he just kept glaring. He bared his teeth at me like I wouldn't knock them out of his mouth. One of his front teeth was so chipped that It was almost like it wasn't even there.

Classic important kid, obviously.

"You dumbass!" That was an understatement; he was stupider than me. "You tripped all by yourself!" You want a Nine-Tailed Fox? I'll give you a Nine-Tailed Fox, Mama's boy. I held out my fist, ready to knock the bitch out of him.

"Hey, let go of him! Do you know who that is, mutt? That's the Honorable Grandson of the Third Hokage!" _Mutt_. _Wow_, you're _so _cool.

I looked at the old man, then back at the kid. He was still glaring at me; I could definitely see the resemblance.

Suddenly, he broke into a wide, chipped-toothed smile.

"Hah! What's the matter? Can't hit me 'cause I'm the Hokage's grandson?" _Oh, _I realized, _the poor bastard thought I was hesitating. _I clutched his cape in my hand, got my other fist ready, looked him in the eyes, then smashed it into his face.

He flew out of my hand.

I didn't know what was better: His shocked face as he flew away from me, or the heavy _thud _he made when he landed on the floor.

"Wh… What?!" Mama's boy gaped at me. "How could… You… Why did…?" Then, after rolling my eyes away from them, I stuffed my hands in my pockets, turned towards the door, and walked out.

CHIASA

I was floating when I came to, and I had no idea where I was drifting. I couldn't feel anything besides a surprisingly pleasant, warm air caressing my face- not even the ground. Occasionally, blades of grass would nip at the bottoms of my arms and legs, but I didn't really think about it too much.

_Where am I? _I tried to remember. _What was I doing, a second ago? _ I couldn't put my finger on it, but I was almost sure it was something important…

_Actually, I can't really remember… _anything.

My train of thought was interrupted by a high-pitched, musical screech.

I felt like I should've jumped, or acted surprised in some way, but I wasn't. I didn't know why, but I didn't feel like reacting to anything here. It was nice and quiet… I felt like I could've stayed there for a while.

Come to think of it, haven't I always been here? I couldn't remember much before this… but something about this place just seemed so… _familiar._

A drop of sweat rolled down my cheek and off of me, getting lost in the warm air that formed it.

_Was it this hot before? _I didn't remember it turning into summer. _What was yesterday…? It was June fourth, wasn't it? _My own thoughts echoed in my head, telling me that I was completely alone. Should that have bothered me?

Something screeched again. The sound repeated itself all around me, and slowly began to evolve.

It turned into different notes, each one complementing the last, until it became something bigger… something I knew.

_This song… _I didn't remember what song it was, but it was definitely… It was so beautiful that it relaxed my muscles even more, and a ghost of a smile started to play at the edges of my lips. I kind of liked this place. It reminded me of the forest; it was _peaceful. _

_Chiasa. _Someone whispered. At this, I did gasp, but only slightly. My eyes stayed shut.

It was a woman's voice; that much I could tell. No, it was more than that… it was an _angel's _voice. It was so soft and light that it filled me with this pure hearted happiness just by hearing it.

_Wake up, Chiasa. _So kind… no one had ever been so nice to me before. As soon as I had heard her, I knew that I would do anything for her. How could anything evil come out of such a sweet, beautiful voice? _Open your eyes. For me, Chiasa. For me. _It was like pure gold; melodic, even.

_Say my name again… _I begged it. _Please. _I waited for a few seconds, but no body answered.

_Open your eyes… _ Slowly, without my intending to do so, my eyes fluttered open, and I hit the ground.

What I saw took my breath away; it _was _a forest, and probably the most beautiful one I had ever seen. Even though I had never been here before, it still felt just as much like home as mine had. I wasn't a stranger here.

I stared straight up to the top of the trees, staring in awe at the silver lining around the leaves that blocked my view of the sun. They shook a little in the light breeze, but their branches held them in place.

This place had no equivalent. The colors made it come to life, and it was as though it was holding me in one of its arms. Out of everywhere else in the entire world that I'd been, I had never been somewhere so _alive. _It was breathtaking, magnificent.

Beautiful.

The whistling picked up again, but this time it was softer. This version of the song was modest, and inviting. I wanted to go to it so badly, but I had no idea where it was coming from. I stared around at the trees, searching for anything to give me a hint. Instead, I just gasped.

I realized- _there was not a single living thing in this forest. _It got my heart going in a second.

There were squirrel holes and bird's nests, but everything was completely vacant. I was the only animal; everything else was either grass or a tree. As I looked around, completely in awe, the song went on effortlessly. It was like it had no idea that no one was listening to it. A beautiful song, being sung to nobody.

It was a waste, just like this forest. So beautiful… but nothing and no one to see it.

_This is… _their were small little burrows in the ground and footprints in the dirt, but I was completely and totally alone. _This is wrong._

_Chiasa… _it was the girl again, and her voice set on me like the warm mist in the air. I hadn't noticed before, but the place was kind of foggy and distant, like it was meant to put me in another daze. A smile spread across my face, and I had forgotten anything that I was worried about before.

She slowed my heart down.

_Stand up, Chiasa… come find me. _All I had to do after that was put the pieces together.

I was alone in this forest. The sole living thing.

Someone- or some_thing_, was whistling, and it wasn't me.

There was a girl talking to me, who's voice was too beautiful to be mine.

It was evident then, that I wasn't alone. Whoever this girl was, she was here, somewhere. I had no idea where to find her, but she wanted me to. For her, I'd do anything.

The whistling picked up again.

_That's it! _I hadn't even realized that I had bounced onto my feet. _When did I…? _I shook off the thought. Slowly but surely, my heart rate picked up again. She was feeding me back some of my free will. She was going to let me come to her myself.

_I'm coming, whoever you are. _I said as I jumped up high, to a tree branch. I stopped there though, not continuing on, to think for a few seconds. My feet fit perfectly onto it like it was made for me.

Creepy.

_I'm going to find you. _I had no idea what it was about her, but something in her voice made me… _crave _her. I had to see what this woman looked like.

I narrowed my eyes into slits and stared through the forest, to a patch of light in the distance. Then, I rebounded off of my feet and sent myself soaring through the air to the rest of the trees.

I didn't think, however, of what this would do to me. I should've thought some more about it, to avoid what was about to happen. That day would change my life forever, and I'd never be able to look at the world the same way. I should've stopped, turned around, lied back down on that floor, and closed my eyes.

But I didn't, so I had to pay the price.

NARUTO

Stupid village.

_Whoosh!_

I kicked the dirt as I walked, and it flew up in my face.

_Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!_

I was going to kill someone if I stayed here. I swear, one of these days…

The Village Hidden in the Leaves was a hellhole, ran by a crack-head Hokage who had a grandson that was embarrassing to look at.

There was a dirt path that branched off from the main road, surrounded by a picket fence. I came here a lot; it was the fastest way to get to the playground, "school," and home so I didn't have to look at anyone.

I vandalized it a lot as a kid.

Chiasa cleverly called it the "Sidepass" when we were younger, because we could pass on the side without anyone watching.

It was around that time when I heard him following me, and I stopped in my tracks.

_You have got to be fucking kidding me, _I , hello honorable grandson. _Get the fuck out. _

He was hiding behind random objects, like random rocks along the sides, and he slowly creeped closer to me when my back was turned. _You're pathetic_, I thought. It sounded like there was a constipated tyrannosaurus rex walking behind me who made earthquakes and jumped up and down as he walked. When I thought he was in mid-object switch, I turned around to show him that I knew what he was doing.

So what did he do?

He put a sheet over his entire body, curled up on the floor, and pretended to be a rock.

At first, I just stood there and looked at him. When _I _was eight, I was a master of disguise.

_That's funny, _I thought, putting two fingers to my forehead and sighing again. _I don't remember seeing any perfectly shaped rocks in the middle of the road with two feet sticking out of the bottom. _

How inconspicuous.

I turned back around and started to walk away. _If I don't see him, then he's not there. _That's what I had to keep telling myself, pointlessly, of course. _Keep walking, Naruto. Just keep walking. _

Not five seconds had passed when I heard the sheet blow off of him and listened as he rebounded to his feet. _Don't do it. Don't you _dare _do it. He's not there. He isn't. Don't even think about it. _

I have to say, though, when he started walking a foot behind me, completely imitating my feet, I wanted to turn around and stab him. _Don't… don't… _I stopped walking, and so did he.

"Stop following me!" I roared, spinning around and throwing my finger out, pointing at him and his sheet.

But that would be too easy.

All the blood rushed to my face when I saw what he was doing. I had no idea where the hell this kid was getting all of these sheets from, but there he was, holding another one up in front of his face. This time, he was against the fence. I guess it could've been worse; at least the sheet matched the pattern of the wooden stakes in the ground, sort of.

That was the only thing that he did right, though.

He was holding it the wrong way, so that the fence was somehow turned sideways in the center. I blinked.

It gets worse.

His big, spikey ponytail stuck out from the top, and I could see his hands clutching the fabric. He was short, so the whole thing bunched up on the ground. From the side, it just looked like the fence randomly decided to stick out of its original form and defy gravity.

He giggled from under the blanket, and I had had enough.

"Your camouflage is pathetic." I narrowed my eyes at him, and he laughed louder. The blood rushed to my face, and I balled my hands up into fists. _Give me one reason why I shouldn't hit you again… _

"You've seen through my disguise…" He smiled evilly, trying to be cool and mysterious as he uncovered his face. "Your reputation is well-earned." Reputation? This kid didn't know shitabout my "reputation." I only glared at him as he dropped the sheet and walked over to me, staring me in the face like we were equals.

God, I hated that kid.

"I will allow you to make me your apprentice!" He whipped his finger out and thrust it in my face, somehow managing to look down on me when I was a foot taller than him. _Oh God… please tell me he's kidding… he has to be kidding… Oh God… _

That's when I realized that I could just say no, punch him again, and walk away.

"But first…" A wide smile spread across his face, and I got my fists ready. "I want you to teach me how to use that Jutsu! You know, the one you used to beat Grandpa Hokage!" It was typical for a kid to come and ask me to train them once they hit a certain age; they all did. This kid, though, was hopeless. I would _never _teach anyone or anything like him.

_Especially _not the _Sexy Jutsu_.

"Get out of here." I said, looking away from him and getting ready to walk again. Before I could leave, though, he managed to get my attention again.

Damn kid.

"Please, boss! Please, please, please!" Suddenly, my eyes shot back to his face. I felt my eyebrows go up as he scrunched his face together, begging.

"Boss?" Well, maybe this kid wasn't so bad, after all. A smile spread across my face. I liked the sound of boss.

"Boss! Boss! Boss!" Definitely not as bad as I thought. I'd teach him, just because I was a good person. Admit it, you wish you knew someone as amazing as me.

"Well," I laughed, putting one arm behind my head, "I guess I have no choice."

CHIASA

My favorite thing to do was tree hop. Of course, no one else called it that; it was a name that I had made up when I had first learned to do it. Basically, it was a Ninja's way of flying. Leaf Ninja, especially. They invented it.

I loved it when the air hit my face as I jumped from tree branch to tree branch, blowing my hair back behind my shoulders. I could go even faster up here, where there were so many less limits, so many less boundaries…

I had always wanted to fly.

For some reason, here, where the hot air was an entirely new kind of warm, and everything that I did was just so _alive_, I loved it even more. That's why, as the light through the trees got closer and closer and the whistling got louder, I was almost a little sad.

Almost.

When I got out of the trees, I had to squint because the sun was so bright. I realized that it was a clearing a second too late, and I thought I was going to fall and break my legs.

That's what I _thought_, but since when did my life ever make sense?

When the world cleared up a little, the breath was knocked out of me_. _I stared open-mouthed at the scenery in front of me, so monumental that it sent shivers down my spine.

For whatever reason, I was suspended in midair. Something, whatever it was, had saved me from falling fifty feet. It must've been merciful, because it let me take in the clearing as I drifted peacefully to the ground.

The pine forest around me enhanced everything else; it was a wide, grassy meadow, about a hundred feet all the way around. Purple and yellow wildflowers bloomed and sprouted out of the ground, making the lake glow a crystal blue. They blew sideways in the wind, making ripples in the grass they lay on.

That lake was fed by a towering waterfall that erupted from in between two breathtaking mountains, perfectly shaped to the snowy point. The grass was the lightest green, shining in comparison to the dark trees around it.

There were no mountains as tall as this in the Leaf Village. There weren't any for hundreds of miles, until you reached the Land of Lightning. In the Land of Lightning, there weren't any forests. So where the hell _was _I?

When my feet touched the ground again, the song busted its way into my head. I looked around, knowing that if it was coming from anywhere, that place would be here. It didn't take my ears very long, though, to hear the change in the music.

The whistling was gone; the song was being sung now, by the saddest, most beautiful voice I had ever heard.

It sounded like an angel crying, and it made me want to burst into tears.

I was searching for it frantically, practically combing the entire landscape, when something shiny caught my eye. I didn't know if it was a gold coin, or just a piece of the sun that had fallen and burned here, but it was more radiant than Naruto's hair.

When I got a closer look at it, I realized that it _was _hair. Waist-length, perfect, pure golden hair.

I was sure it was her.

I wasn't gaping at her for five seconds before she stood up solemnly and faced into the forest, still singing. Her knee-length, long sleeved white dress flowed into the wind behind her, making her entire being look eerie. She was very young; she couldn't have been more than five, if she was tall.

_Call out to me. _She whispered, and Goosebumps slid up my arms. Idly, I cupped my hands around my mouth, ready to yell for her to hear me. I cleared my throat and took a deep breath, not even realizing what I was doing.

I was cut short, though, by my own gasp and scream.

I found myself staring, horror stricken, into a pair of perfect, eye-level, terrifying blood-red eyes. My lips quivered, my legs wobbled, and every muscle in my body was frozen, stiff to the core. I had never seen anything like these.

They looked like they wanted to kill me.

NARUTO

"If you want to be a Ninja, first you need to learn how to control your Catra." We had walked back to the main road; if he was going to transform, he needed someone to transform into. While I was thinking about what to say next to sound smart, he stopped in his tracks and stared at me like I was an idiot.

Oh, what _now_?

"Um… boss?" I knew I shouldn't have agreed to teach this kid. He wasn't ready, and I had the feeling that he never really would be. Even though we were stopped in the middle of the street, the villagers and shop owners on the sides were too busy talking, and barely even noticed us.

_Get used to it, kid._

"What?" I snapped, turning around. He was interrupting brilliance in the making… and I was _teaching _it to him. He looked troubled as he brought himself to answer.

"I think you mean… Chakra."

Fuck.

_C'mon, Naruto… think fast. There's an easy way to cover this up, you're just not thinking about it. _

"Um… well…" I looked around nervously. _There has to be an answer around here somewhere… _The only thing that I saw were people; people who hated me, people who didn't hate me, and people who didn't give a shit.

Damn it.

"That's what real Ninja call it, idiot! Man, you're so stupid, I swear…" I shook my head at him, even though I wasn't exactly sure what I had just said. I went with it, because I didn't really have a choice, but Chipped Tooth looked like he actually believed me.

"Really?" He gasped, smiling. "I never knew that!" He looked enlightened, like I had just told him about God or something. _Well, it's a good thing this kid's an idiot. _I sighed. By the look on his face, he was about ready to jump up and down and run around in circles.

Okay, that was far enough.

"Listen…" I tried to make my voice sound light, like I didn't want to rip his head of as I wiped the sweat off of my forehead. "Basically, Chakra is-"

"It's the energy needed in order to perform a Jutsu." He stood up straight, held his chin up, and pointed one finger towards the sky. I just stared at him, trying to understand what he even said. _Yeah, well… That's what I was going to say_… I coughed and looked around, pretending that I knew what he was talking about.

I hated stuck-up jerks.

"In other words, fundamental Ninja arts combine the physical energy accumulated from each cell in the body with spiritual energy accumulated through training and experience." My mouth was just hanging open, and I stared at him like he had five heads. "This combined energy is summoned with certain hand signs, and-"

And what was in his hands?  
A big, thick ass, puffy red scroll. Obviously.

"Asshole!" I slammed my fist down on the parchment and it flew out of his hands. I tried to take deep breaths as it thudded on the dirt, rolling away idly. "You made me think you knew all that stuff!" I sighed, and he smiled at me with a big, toothy grin.

_Yeah, that's right. I bet you think you're adorable, don't you? You think your manipulative, just because you have a fat face and a wide, cute little smile. Well, kid, I'm not going to fall for it. _

"Okay, look." I changed the subject, so that I didn't seriously injure him in public. "There's a lot of stuff that Ninja's need to know, but there's really only one important thing to keep in mind." I started walking, and he scrambled to follow me.

"And what's that?" He gave me that annoying stare again, like _he _was _my _teacher. He looked like he didn't even believe me. _I'm not kidding, kid. Don't come crying to me when you get your ass kicked on a mission. _

"Hard work and guts." His eyes grew wide again, and these dimples the size of my thumbs appeared in his cheeks as he smiled.

I must've sounded like I actually knew what I was talking about, because it changed the way he looked at me entirely.

Now, he finally looked at me with respect.

"Hard work and guts?" He flabbergasted, because it was so unbelievable. For whatever fucked up reason, I actually smiled back.

"That's right, so get ready for my challenges!" It was simple, really. I would just train him like I trained myself. Any idiot could do it; I proved that three years ago. His eyes lit up with excitement, and he started bouncing again.

I sighed, but I kept that smile glued on my face. _He's not totally hopeless, _anyone _can do this… _I had to keep reminding myself that.

"What should I do first, boss?!" He squealed. Oh God, why? I looked around, trying to find a cute girl. It was kind of hard in this Village, but there were a couple. Finally, I found a skinny girl with long, straight brown hair, dressed up in a purple kimono.

A smile spread across my face. This was the type of thing that Chiasa would typically get mad at me for doing.

She'd live.

"Transform into that girl," I pointed to her, and he looked over cluelessly. When he saw her, standing by a fruit stand, he smiled too.

_I'm not asking for a prodigy like me… _I thought, looking the poor kid up and down, _just please, _please _don't give me a worthless idiot… _I gulped, already knowing where this was headed.

_Smile, Naruto…_

"Yes, sir!" he put his hands together, scrunching his face up and getting ready to scream at the top of his lungs.

Again, fuck.

"Transform!" He bellowed, and the cloud of steam came almost immediately afterwards.

His speed was about it, though. There was absolutely _nothing _good to take away from the result.

When the transformation finished, he made me want to go blind. It was a brunette girl in a purple kimono, all right… and she _weighed two tons. _I sighed. She had fish lips, a triple chin, a giant mole on her forehead, and a stomach that almost hit me in the face.

I was standing five feet away from him.

"Well, how is it?" I winced when "she" even spoke. Her voice was deeper than mine…

Fucking kid.

"Well, um…" There had to be a good thing to say. There _had _to be. "The clothes are… um…"

"And what's so similar about _that?_" A high, deadly voice ambushed me as a shadow hung over my head.

Of course. Of fucking course. I clenched my fists, bit my lip, gulped, and turned around. _You can handle this, man, just do it. _Squinting, I looked her in the eyes.

She looked like Sakura Haruno whenever I was around.

Her fist flew at me faster than Chiasa ever ran, and the last thing that I can remember seeing is blackness in one eye, and a blur in the other.

"If you're going to transform into me, honorable grandson," her voice was high-pitched and hiccupy, like a real stuck up bitch, "try to at least make me look a little cuter!"

CHIASA

I had never felt anything like this.

She was in my bones. She was breathing into them, breathing the very life into my soul, and she could stop at any minute.

I was in her grasp, helpless and paralyzed. I just stood there, getting lost in those eyes for what felt like an eternity, as she slowly pulled the willpower out of me, yanking it out of places that I didn't even know I had. Any plea for an escape that I could ever hope to have was drowning, struggling for help but getting ignored.

I had never been so sure that I was going to die.

I couldn't breathe. I could feel her hands around my throat, suffocating me as they rested by her sides. This was the girl that I would do anything for, and I still would. She'd burn me to the core if I didn't follow her, and I feared her with every last inch of me.

Then, just as quickly, it was all over.

I let out a breath that I didn't even know I was holding, and fell to my knees.

My head hung low, and I pushed myself off of the ground with my arms, I stared at the dirt, focusing on one, small piece of grass. _As long as that's there, _I thought, _I am still alive. _I could feel the girl staring at my head, and I realized that I was bowing to her. I let my head fall immediately, and my arms stretched out above it across the floor.

"Stand up." She spoke gently and anciently as she commanded me at her feet. I didn't know what to do or what to think; I was just lying there, waiting.

"Stand." She repeated herself, not even a little more sternly. I looked up at her to make sure that I wouldn't be offending her in any way, but her silhouette was blacked out by the sun and I couldn't see her. Before she could tell me to stand again, I stumbled and tried to push myself to my feet.

When I really saw her, that's when I was completely on her leash.

She was the single most beautiful thing that I had ever seen, but she looked almost exactly like me. Almost.

She was full and healthy looking, and her long blonde hair stretched down almost to her ankles. It was that too-familiar platinum blonde, but it was golden and shining in the sunlight. Her strapless white dress made her look like a goddess, and her eyelashes were long, thick, dark and flowing.

Looking at her was like getting punched in the self-esteem.

Her bold red eyes with the eye-lashes made it almost impossible to look away from her face, and they made her look ten feet taller than me.

We were the same height.

"What's your name?" Her voice wasn't like mine. Hers was smooth, evolved, and womanly. Mine was a girl's, shaky and unsure. I couldn't concentrate on a single thing about her without comparing her to myself, and I had never really been the jealous type.

It took me another seventeen seconds, thirty sped up breaths, and what felt like ten thousand heart beats to even register the fact that she had asked me a question. She made this place look ugly, and that was an understatement.

"Ch-Chiasa." I choked out. "Chiasa Uzumaki." She just stared at me, her eyes much less intense now. I might've been hallucinating, but I think her perfect, light pink lips might have even smiled.

_She already knew my name. _Why did she want to make me say it?

"One Thousand Mornings…" I jumped when she said it's meaning; it was something that I had always hung onto as a child, and still took pride in.

The meaning of my name was probably one of the only things that I liked about myself, if there was anything else.

"You shouldn't feel like that, Chiasa." _She had said my name again_. Just talking to her took my breath away. She could read my thoughts… but I couldn't hear hers. Was she a kunoichi? Did she have an even more powerful Mind Jutsu than I did?

She gasped, and my heart started racing. I jumped at the sound, but I was terrified after that. My horrified expression was mirrored on her face, and I felt this creeping sensation come back… that feeling like I was going to die.

I could feel what she felt, too.

As soon as she got rid of her horrified expression, I could breathe again.

"You're sharp…" She smiled, complimenting me. My heart swelled up, and triumph started flowing in my blood. Was this… _pride_? I narrowed my eyes at her.

"Who are you?" I took a step back, ready to make a run for it if I needed to. The way that she looked me up down made me uncomfortable, and I was sick of standing here being controlled.

Of course, to confuse me more, she just stood there and smiled. I clenched my fists.

"What's the-"

"How do you expect to know who _I _am, when you don't even know who _you_ are?" I gasped, and my palms got sweaty. I could feel my heart speed up, as it usually did, but this time… this time it was different. This was a different kind of fear; one that, at the time, I couldn't put a name to.

She really did know everything about me.

Luckily for me, it was because she said that that I remembered what I'd been doing. It all came flowing back to me in cut off images; Hibachi, Sasuke, Mizuki, Iruka Sensei… and Naruto.

I looked down, away from her, and clenched my chest with my hand. The pain spread like a forest fire that wouldn't ever really subside.

It was killing me.

"I want…" I paused, taking a deep breath, not believing the words coming out of my mouth. "…to go back to Konoha." I looked her straight in the face, hoping that I didn't look afraid of her. _I am not afraid of this woman… I am not afraid… _

"Dreams are like thumbprints, Chiasa." I couldn't stop my eyes from flying wide open. I felt so violated around her; When I thought things, it was just like saying them out loud. When I felt things, she'd know.

I hated her.

And, obviously, she sighed in disappointment when I thought that.

She didn't just know my thoughts and my feelings. No, I had the feeling that she knew absolutely everything about me. She knew my dreams, my convictions, and probably my opinions and background too. I bared my teeth at her, ready to fight my way out of here if I had to.

"Calm down, Chi-"

"Don't say my name!" I snarled at her, feeling my shoulders tense up and my arm muscles (if you could call them that) flex. I was going to kill her. Today, I'd become a murderer. I didn't really know what the big deal was about her saying my name, maybe because it was the last piece of myself that I had left, but I completely disregarded anything that I had just said.

It wouldn't matter, once she was gone.

"You can't kill me." She rolled her eyes and held her hand out, having her delicate palm face up like she wanted me to take it. "I thought you were smart." I took a step back, staring at her in disbelief.

_What kind of idiot do you take me for? _I was sure she wasn't going to hurt me. No one who looked _this _fragile could ever…

I really, honestly, believed she couldn't. It gave me so much courage that I'm ashamed of myself.

"Yes, you want to be courageous, don't you? More than anything, right? You don't want to have to watch your brother suffer anymore, and it's all your fault because you can't protect him." The last part wasn't a question.

That's when I knew that she didn't just know me. I had never thought that far into it, so maybe she had just guessed wrong…

But I agreed with her more than I should have, with every ounce of my being.

It wasn't just that she knew me; she knew me better than I knew myself.

My heart was pounding as my face grew hot. I was furious, and I wasn't afraid at all. At that point, I had completely convinced myself that I didn't have to be afraid of her. _Run, _a voice whispered in my head.

It was mine.

_Leave her here and go. _I was going to, but I couldn't bring myself to move. I just stood there, glaring at her. I hated this woman with everything I had, and I wanted her to pay for it.

She laughed.

I clenched my teeth and started breathing heavily. I didn't really understand why I was so angry myself, but it didn't matter. She was going to die, and I was going to kill her.

"Oh, Chiasa…" She sighed, shaking her head. "Mistrustful, underestimating, Chiasa… Stop overrating yourself." And, at that moment, my eyes bulged out of their sockets. My mouth flew open and ran dry. Sweat oozed off of my face, and my fists were blasted open.

Before I knew it, her hand slammed into my chest. The wind was knocked out of me, and my willpower was lost in an exhale. It was the weirdest thing, but it didn't feel like gravity was holding me to the Earth anymore; it didn't want me. It was pushing me, trying to drag me away from her, and my feet left the ground as I went flying.

She shrank farther and farther away from me as she breathed steadily, hand still outstretched, when I heard a piercing scream echo through the woods that I was hurtling towards.

She was just lowering her hand when I realized that that piercing scream was mine.

4:00 P.M.

_That's what the clock read on his desk when he glanced at it. He was sitting down, leaning back on the chair, fighting to keep his head up and rubbing sleep from his eyes. He stood up mindlessly, silently thankful that his long shift was finally over. He had been up all night, and he could finally go home. _

_Mitate looked around, making sure that his office wouldn't combust while he was at home, sleeping. In this Village, anything could happen. He packed up his things mindlessly, looked at the monitor one more time, and turned around. _

_Just as he was about to leave for the night, a blood curdling scream came from behind him. He jumped, and froze for only a second. _

_With his job, he couldn't afford any more than that. _

_He spun around and rushed back to the monitor, feeling the sweat pour down his forehead. As he sanned each video feed from the patients rooms, his heart started skipping beats. He finally found what he had been looking for- for almost ten years- when his eyes stopped on Chiasa Uzumaki. _

_In reality, he actually _didn't _see her. Her square on his screen was a big white rectangle in the upper right corner of the computer, and he knew exactly what this meant._

_They had been afraid of this since it happened the first time. _

NARUTO

If you've ever sat on a log, shivering from getting beat up by twenty women (and one man) within two hours, groaning because your ass hurts to sit on, then you're probably one of my Shadow Clones.

Either that, or you're me. Or just very unlucky. Or both.

I tried to see the stupid, unscathed kid next to me through my two swollen eyes. I felt like a giant bruise; every part of me hurt, especially when I moved. And yet, no matter where the two of us went, no one seemed to notice him until after they were done with me, and even then they didn't do anything.

I wondered angrily if he could tell that I was glaring at him. Maybe my face was too distorted, but he seemed to get the message. He looked at the ground, like he actually felt sorry for me.

"Why is it always me?" I groaned, burying my face in my hands. "Ow!" As soon as my head went low enough, it felt like my face was crumbling in my palms and my back snapped in half. I decided to stand up so that I didn't risk seriously injuring myself.

"Sorry…" Chipped Tooth stood up with me, but he still didn't look me in the eyes. I raised an eyebrow at him, and my forehead tinged. "It's because I'm the Hokage's grandson." I actually felt sorry for him when he said that. Even though everyone in the Village respected him, and the two of us were completely opposite when you saw us, we were actually kind of the same.

He wanted to be acknowledged for who he was, not something that he couldn't control. He was going to become the Hokage so that people would see him as a hero, and finally accept him for a different reason than what he was born into. In reality, how different was that from my dream?

"Hey, don't worry about it." My face didn't hurt as much as I had expected it to when I smiled, but I had always been a fast healer. As I racked my brains for something nice to say, I looked him up and down like he was an actual person for the first time.

Throughout the day, he hadn't made any progress. We had been almost everywhere trying to stimulate his inner sexiness, but he was totally prude. The same fat… thing… just kept popping up, over and over again.

Every time, I'd get beat up for it.

So what did I say?

"You're ready to for the Sexy Jutsu!" I gave him a thumbs up, even though he looked at me reproachfully. Now that I could actually see him, he _was _kind of like me. Short and loud with a high-pitched voice… I ground my teeth together as I admitted it to myself. "You just need more practice." His face lit up, and it actually felt good to see him happy. _You did good, Naruto._

"Yes, Boss!" He didn't want to disappoint me; how cute.

Even as he started, and even though I screamed criticisms at him without even thinking about it, my mind still started drifting. I had this eerie feeling, like something wasn't quite right, but there was nothing I could do about it.

CHIASA

When I was in a lot of pain, I completely shut myself off. I couldn't talk, I couldn't focus, and I couldn't feel a single thing besides this pressure that was making my body crumble down under my feet. I didn't even know there _was_ power like that; she was the strongest Kunoichi that I had ever seen.

_This can't be real_… I thought, forcing air down my lungs. Every bone in my body felt _broken. _My arms were shaking tight against my ribs, like they were trying to hold me together.

I was falling apart.

I had broken plenty of bones before; it was surprising in our village if anyone hadn't by the age of seven. This, though… this was on a completely different level. I had gone flying, spiraling through the air towards a tree, and it's trunk broke on impact. Blood had flown out of my mouth as soon as I hit it, and the two of us both fell to the ground together. Now I was lying on top of it, trying to support myself with tears coming out of my eyes.

I squinted against the sunlight to try and see her silhouette, and when I saw her, I clutched the tree's bark in my hands. My teeth were clenched together, and I lay there, waiting, wondering… What was she going to do to me? I was even more helpless than usual. She could do whatever she wanted; killing me right now would be easy, since I didn't even have my speed. Mind Possession Jutsu wouldn't help me right now; I was surprised that I was still alive in the first place.

One second, everything was calm and this unbearable pain was the only thing that I had to cope with. One second… and it was just that. I blinked, and her silhouette was gone. Not even a moment later, I was staring at her picture perfect, corrupted angelic face.

She was standing two feet away from me.

I gasped when she came closer, and all of the tiny, blonde hairs on my arms stood erect on my skin. I tightened when she came too close, and I couldn't move when she was near me. Her eyes beat down on mine, ready to finally kill me, when she seemed to stop herself.

I didn't know if I wanted to live and get out of here, or die to escape this.

"Who… the hell… are you?" I spat through clenched teeth, then shivered. It hurt to talk or even move my lips too much. How could anyone have the strength to do this? "What… do you… want… from me?" She raised her hand again, and I flinched.

God, I hated her so much.

"Stand up." Of all the unreasonable… I glared at her, feeling the hot rage bubble up in my throat. _Bitch, you just broke every single bone in my freaking body. If you want me to stand up, then you're going to have to make me. _

I really, _really _shouldn't have thought that.

My heart drowned out all the other sounds as she looked at me, a menacing gleam burning in her face. She was going to kill me. She was going to do it, and there was nothing I could do to stop her. With that in mind, I lay there and waited. I had no idea what I was waiting for, whether it be to live or to die, but at the time, I didn't give a shit. She closed her eyes and concentrated, and the weirdest sensation that I'd ever felt came over me.

At first, it felt like my bones were shaking. Like they were just rumbling around under my skin; it felt funny. I wasn't very ticklish, but I still almost laughed. Then, when she seemed to have done what she was aiming to do, she opened her eyes and started torturing me.

I started screaming before I could even feel the pain. My blood was eating away at the rest of my body, and I could feel my joints snap as quickly as I became her puppet.

I had no control over my body. I hovered above the ground, wailing through clenched teeth as I slowly but surely gave into her. Every time she moved one of my muscles, it just hurt more. Soon enough, both of my arms were twisted over the wrong way, my legs were in a state of stasis, erect and standing on the grass, and my face was so stiff that I couldn't feel it.

She stood there making me do it with the same, cruelly nonchalant expression on her face the whole way through.

"You're pathetic," she said, her voice monotonous. She pulled me tighter and tighter together every time she spoke. "Look at you, completely taken over. You're crying on the verge of death." I cringed when she said the word. _Don't kill me… _I begged silently. I didn't honestly care what happened to me, but every time I thought of giving into her, Naruto's face popped into my head. I didn't want to leave him… but I couldn't do anything to help myself.

Because I was weak.

"I can tell absolutely everything about you just by looking at you. You're a wide open, misused book, and your only purpose is to get stomped on. You make me _sick_." _I know… I know I do… _every insult thrown at me was like a punch to the chest, draining the air from my lungs. I was filth to her… just like I was to everyone else. The way she stared at me… there was absolutely no difference between her eye's and the Villagers. Everyone hated me.

"You're a just a coward," She smiled, chuckling at me. I'd have killed for her to stop talking; I really would've. "…and you're afraid of your own shadow." I bit my lip and looked at the ground. The grass was being blown down away from me with the wind; it was trying to avoid from me, like everyone else. It was so beautiful… everything here was just so, breathtakingly beautiful… It was no wonder they all wanted to get rid of me.

I didn't belong in this place, but they could not know that I knew it.

I couldn't give in; I wouldn't. Being her puppet like this, standing here, immobile, accepting insult after insult… it hurt so bad, and it was killing me to a point beyond any means of coping, but I still refused to give into her.

She wouldn't have that.

I squinted through the searing pain in my skull as she slowly opened her eyes. When she looked at me again, I remembered why I was so intimidated by her in the first place. Her inner eye around her pupil was a darker than it's outer ring, making the entire thing look ten feet deep. Even as she glowered at me, wishing me dead, she was the most perfect thing I had ever seen.

She stood against the mountains, and she made them look ugly. Every color that I could see just enhanced her more, making her look like a single white rose among a sea of charred black ones. The same wind that blew the grass down and my hair in front of my face threw her hair behind her shoulders and let her dress flow behind her.

As another smile played at the edges of her lips, she watched my arm start to twist again. It went completely around until my upper arm just became a knot. When my bone cracked and the sound echoed through the woods, I could taste the blood shoot up my throat.

All she did was stare at me, like she didn't know me, and I wasn't in pain. Finally, I couldn't take it anymore. My mouth shot open, and I shrieked.

I didn't think I could scream for that long, and I never knew that I had that much breath stuffed inside of me. When I was finished, she looked like she hadn't heard me.

"You're probably a sad, unwanted orphan. Nobody loves you, and when you try to push your way in they turn you away."

_I… am so… helpless. _Tears streamed down my face, and I sniffed a few times. Last night, I had truly thought I was strong. I thought things would be different; I beat the number one rookie, escaped death three times, and willingly almost sacrificed myself. In the long run, though, what had changed?

Nothing.

The truth was, if Sasuke had been going all out on me, I'd be dead. If Hibachi and Mizuki had never hesitated, I never would've found the strength to fight them off. I was useless, until someone gave me a reason not to be. If that reason wasn't strong enough… then it'd be over.

Just like that.

I remembered that cold look in the blue man's eyes… when he took his sword and swung, killing a man right in front of me. I loved that man with all my heart, and I could only sit there above reach, watching him fall to the floor as the kunai he threw went off target, stabbing into a tree.

That resigned, cruel look in the blue man's eyes was replicated in this woman's. They had some twisted sense of pity, like they'd let me go because I was just that pathetic, and they'd come back for me later.

"Stop." I said. I stared idly at the ground, and I couldn't feel my body. "I get the message. Just stop." My voice sounded even more dead than usual. She gave me one last chuckle, then looked away. When she started unwinding my body, I had to breathe to stand it. Slowly, I started regaining feeling.

But only on the outside.

_No one else was in the hallway. He was the only one who saw her, and that was bad; she could be dead by now. Or worse, she could've been alive. _

_The sound of his feet against the tile surrounded him and everything else in the hallway as he panted, hurrying to save her. _This is bad… oh god dammit this is bad… _She was three floors away… so far… the last time this had happened to someone, an entire clan was killed off. He couldn't let that happen again, like his brother had. That girl had killed his brother too, for being the fool who couldn't save her. _

_He slammed his fist into the elevator button; determined. He, of all people, would not be that fool. _

NARUTO

We were sitting on the log again; he was panting from working himself so hard, and I was proud of him. Who knew, he actually wasn't worthless after all? He had managed to make a decent looking woman before he ran out of Chakra. We had agreed that he'd take a break to regain some, then we'd try again.

"So, kid, I've been wondering…" The sun beat down on our backs as I wiped my sweat off my forehead. I tried leaning over the rest of my body to give it shade, but it didn't do me much good. Summers in Konoha were so freaking hot.

He looked at me expectantly, and I realized that I had just pulled a jackass move.

I'd have to laugh about that later.

"How come you're so obsessed with beating your Grandpa Hokage?" I wanted to be Hokage too, but this was unhealthy. At first he kind of looked surprised at the question, but then he thought better of it. He turned away and glared angrily at his feet, pulling his eyebrows together.

"My name is Konohamaru." He said it almost matter-of-factly, like his name should've been surprising. Knowing me, I still didn't understand; before I could ask about it though, he went on. "When I was born, my grandpa named me that after the Village. You'd think It'd be easy for everyone to remember, right?"

Oh.

He clenched his fists and sighed. From the look on his face, I could tell that this wasn't a new thing. Even though I knew he had no idea what it was like to be hated, I felt so _bad _for him.

When the fuck did I become so _soft_?

"No one ever calls me that, though. I haven't heard my own name for two and a half years." You're name is what makes you who you are; that's what Chiasa always said. Whenever she'd say that, I told her I wasn't sure, since a Naruto was the swirly thing in a bowl of Ramen. She'd always yell, "you are what you eat!" And we could laugh for hours.

I grimaced. When I thought about his dream, I knew that all these years, she had been spot-on.

"Whenever anyone sees me, they only see me as the "Honorable Grandson." It _sucks _living in the old man's shadow, because no one knows who I really am." Usually when people poured their hearts out, they were supposed to cry. This kid, though… he had a stoic face on, and he looked at the ground calmly. "I'm going insane, here. That's why… I want to be Hokage. Right now." As soon as he said it, all of my pity was gone.

He really didn't understand, did he? Nobody can just wake up one day and decide to be Hokage; it was just like everything else. If you wanted it, you had to work for it. There was nothing else that you could do besides that. I looked away from him, feeling the hot blood rush through me again.

It was about time.

"How the hell do you think you're gonna do that?." He didn't even _know _what he needed to have what it takes. I couldn't believe that I had thought he was different… no, he was just a spoiled brat. "You can't just roll out of bed one day and decide to become Hokage, you have to _train_." I pronounced the word, holding out its only syllable because he was too stupid to get it. Just as I looked at him, he stood up, outraged.

"What?!"He looked like he was about to explode; the fire was like an ember in his eye. _Oh god, kid… _I rolled my eyes. _I taught you the Sexy Jutsu. Sit down, because you owe me. _

But I went on anyways.

"It's not that easy." He bared his teeth at me, shaking with rage.

I have to say, it was really hard not to laugh at him. I was walking over his dream- it was only normal for him to react like this… but the way his baby chub wrapped around his snarl was just so freaking _funny! _I smiled at him, showing him my vampire teeth. He didn't seem to notice them, but he still looked scared of me.

At least, I knew he was on the inside.

"If you really want to be Hokage…" He raised his eyebrows without even meaning to. He probably thought that I was going to tell him some huge secret; some great short cut to becoming the Hokage.

Jerk.

"You're going to have to beat me first! Believe it!" _That_, he wasn't expecting, and he just looked at me.

Well, what do you know. I knew the kid was stupid.

CHIASA

We stared at each other for a long, painful moment. She still wasn't blinking; if I could feel my face, I'd glower at her. Iwas still struggling to keep my mind blank, which, believe it or not, is hard to do around someone you hate.

Suddenly, she lifted her foot off the ground and actually started to inch her way closer to me. I felt the Goosebumps go up on my skin, and my breathing grow up as I tightened, barely able to stand.

_Get back… please… get away from me… _It was a first, for me. Running was like second nature by that point, but I was never, not once in my life was I _not able to run_. The only thing I could do was stand there begging her, without the strength to talk.

I made myself sick, too.

"I have something to show you." She whispered calmly. I stared at her in completely lost awe as she walked towards me, growing taller and more mature looking by the second. My head was spinning, and I kind of wanted to scream.

Why, you might ask?

Oh, well, you know… there I was, standing frozen in a place that didn't exist, right across from a rapidly-aging woman who had just nearly killed me by looking at me, and now wanted to be my friend.

Yeah, fuck my life.

I had no idea what she was getting at, but whatever it was, I wasn't going to do it. I glared at her again, wanting to step back and bolt, but stayed there. I wasn't her prisoner anymore; no, now I was my own prisoner. I was trapped inside myself, and I couldn't move because _I was my own boundary_. She knew it. She knew it all the way deep down, and I had never hated anyone more than this.

"You want to know who you are, don't you?"

Who did she think she was? My mother? For all I knew, she could've been my father. How the hell would I know? Of course it bothered me that I didn't know who I was. Of course I wanted to find out, more than almost anything…

"Which is why I'm trying to help you." She took me by surprise, I can't deny that. Did _I _annoy people this much when I answered _their _thoughts?

_Fuck... fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck_. So much for trying to clear my head.

She was only confusing me more with the way she looked at me. It was the most emotion that I had seen out of her yet, and it stuck me so hard that at first, I didn't know what to say to her. The look in her eyes burned with determination and more sincerity than I've ever used in my life; she was pitying me. The girl who was just plainly humiliating me… only felt bad for me now. 

"Why the hell should I trust you?!" She was an insane bitch. She didn't know what she was talking about, and she obviously had some serious people problems. "I can't even move because of you!" The fire in her eyes faded as quickly as it had come, and she seemed to get a hold of herself.

"I'm sorry…" Well, she hadn't lost her sincerity.

I shook my head, wanting to stab myself. First, she almost kills me. Then, she doesn't because she finds some random goodness in her heart to let me live. Now, she was apologizing. What the _hell_? I hoped I looked as angry as I felt. If she was really this loving, kind creature that she said she was now, she'd get upset about that. Back then, it was the only way I could hurt her.

Suddenly, she held up her hands and I was on the defensive. Was she going to throw me back again? A single drop of sweat rolled down my cheek as I waited for her to look me in the eyes, bring her gaze back up from the floor, and watch me. She had fucked up common sense so much that pretty much anything she did now would be considered realistic.

At least, that's what I thought.

Wrong again, Chiasa.

"I'm going to help you, Chiasa. Give me a chance, and I promise you…" Almost immediately, she opened her eyes again. Something was different now, though; she didn't look blood-thirsty this time, she looked like she really, truly wanted to help me, and that she was going to honestly try to do so. She mumbled something under her breath that I couldn't hear, and squinted her eyes like she was hurting.

I can't even explain what happened to me.

Her eyes changed from red to gold in an instant, making her look happier, or maybe even complete. She didn't look like a shred of corrupted goodness anymore; now she was pure, and I could feel it.

Stupidly, so stupidly, I decided to trust her.

At first, I could only stare. The white fire that shot out of her fingertips wrapped around us, and I just looked at it, dumbstruck. It was so beautiful and blinding when the sun hit it; it sent sparkles across my face and all around the floor. I squinted as I took it all in; the feel of it.

I was freezing. It radiated this icy feeling, but it wasn't that type of cold that you got when you were around someone like Sasuke. It sent a shiver up my spine, but I was already paralyzed. What could I do besides stand there? What the hell was it about her that always made me freeze?

Why didn't _I _have power like that?

When it blew around me and touched my skin, it felt like an electric shock. It was so unexpected that I couldn't even pull my hand away. Why did it feel so freaking… _warm_? Nothing made any sense, but I just stood there with my eyes narrowed at her.

I knew exactly what this was, and exactly what she was doing to me.

It skimmed across my ribs in big, white swirls, mending everything she destroyed. As it seeped under my skin and made it's way through my blood, happiness spread through me like a forest fire.

_How dare you? _I ground my teeth, clenched my fist, and let her heal me. _Naruto is the only person… _I stared at her dark silhouette one last time, coldly, as the flames slowly faded away and subsided. _…who can make me happy._

She bent over, panting as her features lit up again and her pupils shrank. I had no idea where she got this sudden change of heart from, but she fell to her knees like she actually tried to help me; no one ever did.

"Are you feeling better?" She peered up at me through the hair falling over her face.

She just fucking existed to confused me. I shook my head and looked away, knowing that I only had control of myself when I wasn't looking at her.

I wasn't her property.

"Why…" I bit my lip and took a deep breath. _I can do this._ "Do you have my Chakra?"

NARUTO

Let me tell you something about me. I don't know if you've picked it up yet, but I don't really deal with being quiet very well.

Just sitting there next to him was the more painful than sitting through the old geezer's entire lecture. No matter how much the old man smoked, and least he was saying _something_.

But no. We were sitting there on a fucking tree, staring at the floor and feeling sorry for ourselves.

In complete, fucking, silence.

That stupid kid didn't even know what he had just said to me. He thought that he could just steal my title as Hokage because he was special? No, that wasn't how it worked. You're born into what you're born into. He was born the Hokage's Grandson, and I was born a sadistic, Nine-Tailed Fox.

Come at me, bitch.

That's when I realized that I really _was _an idiot. I glanced back at him on the log one more time to make sure that he wasn't having another melodramatic crying fit, but I was safe. He was just glaring at the dirt, like it did something wrong. He really looked like he hated it, and that's when I realized; I didn't even _like _this kid. What the hell was I sitting there for?

I was about to stand up and get the fuck outta there. I'd just go, and never have to see this kid again.

I could easily have been ruining someone's day at that moment, but no. When does anything ever go _my _way? Just as I was finally getting myself ready to go, there was a loud _thud _that came from behind us.

It was the type of sound that would just inevitably give me a migraine.

And that was on a good day.

"There you are, Honorable Grandson!" Honorably Grandson… it was more of a curse than a title.

I had this talent when I was younger. I could hear someone's voice, and I could tell absolutely everything about them. For example: This guy was a wannabe who constantly tried to make his voice sound deeper and probably never had a girlfriend. He struck me as the scrawny, pathetic guy that thought he knew what he was talking about.

It must've been because I was such a people person.

It didn't even take _me _very long to figure out who it was. How many Mama's boys were there in the Leaf? It didn't matter. This guy was _the _mama's boy. The _definition_ of "Mama's boy."

I stood up and turned around, ready for some Shadow Clone action.

The poor guy… he had no idea what he was getting into with me. I stared up at him, waiting for him to notice me glowering at him. When he finally saw me, though, I wished that I had never even looked at him.

He looked at me like everyone always did, of course. Like I was a freaking Dog who just took a shit on the carpet. Do you know how hard it is to walk around and have everybody always looking at you like you made a mistake? Like _you _werea mistake?

Well, that was _my _special treatment. Admit it, you're jealous.

I pressed my teeth together, trying to breathe through my nose. So many feelings started swirling up inside of me, that I had no idea what I was even doing standing there. I should've gone home right then, but I didn't. I stayed there to watch the pathetic shit that was about to happen unfold.

"Come on, Honorable Grandson. It's time to go." He was standing on top of a tree branch, overlooking us. With a teacher like that, it was no wonder the poor kid was so messed up. I felt bad for him; I really did. He just stared at the guy, hating him with everything he had.

"No!" He was practically screaming. "I'm going to beat Grandpa Hokage without your help!" Mama's boy jumped down, so fast that I almost didn't see him. I would've staggered back, but I didn't want to give him the pleasure.

"Stay out of my way, asshole." The kid's voice was dark as his teacher walked over slowly, smiling and holding his arms out.

It was like he didn't even hear him.

"Honorable Grandson," his voice was as arrogant, loud, and obnoxious as ever. "Before you become Hokage, you need to know all about virtue, honor, etiquette, wisdom, faith, judgment, obedience, and so many more things that he can't teach you. He can't teach you _anything _like I can."

As I was, admittedly, taken back by this, I started to wonder. Did this guy drag the poor kid around with him all day, telling him how to act, how to talk, and who to be? That was fucked up. The kid just wanted to be himself, and he couldn't, because this guy wouldn't let him. The more he talked, the more "Honorable Grandson" started to sound like "Kyuubi."

He was just like me.

"… He has to master over a thousand Jutsu…" Chipped Tooth's eyebrow twitched.

Without even taking the time to think about what he was doing, he clapped his hands together. I furrowed my eyebrows, and I was kind of skeptical about where this was going. His Chakra was swarming around him in a giant, spherical, light blue spiral. The determination in his eyes was purely focused on his total hatred of the man in front of him, and he bared his teeth as he lifted two fingers up, forming the tiger seal.

"Transform!" He roared, and we were all surrounded in steam.

At first, Mama's Boy was just surprised. He hadn't taught him anything yet, so what the hell was the kid doing? I almost felt sorry for the clueless bastard. Almost.

She was perfect. Slender, surrounded by a thin cloud, and had long brown hair that fell all the way down her back. If I hadn't been a master at this, I probably would've gotten a nose bleed just like everyone else.

Instead, I just started laughing.

"A thousand Jutsu, huh?" Her voice was high and seductive when she winked at him. "How do you like my Sexy Jutsu, Ebisu-sama?" Words can't describe how proud I was.

Mama's Boy's cheeks flushed a blood red, and he grabbed the sides of his face. He was probably checking to see that he was still awake; I tended to have that effect on people. With an open jaw, he searched for the right words to say.

Most people were speechless at my Jutsu, it was no big deal.

"_What kind of disgraceful spell is that?!_" Oh, the rambling. This was what adults did when they were in denial. They started to talk with big, nerdy words and usually tried to get the hell out of wherever they were before they caved in and admitted defeat. "_I am a gentleman!" _I wasn't sure how much of a man he really was, but I didn't say anything.

"What…?" The kid just stared at him, and he pulled his eyebrows together. "Why didn't it work?"

"_SUCH VULGAR ATTACKS WILL NEVER WORK ON ME!" _He clutched his cape and started to pull him away, fighting to get out of my sight. The kid didn't know it, but I knew it, and Mama's boy knew I knew it. "If you hang around that kid, you're going to become an imbicile!" That "vulgar attack" _had _worked on him. It had worked like a charm, and he would do anything not to admit it.

Maybe I would've let him go, but I still had to fuck with somebody today, and unfortunately for him, I had just gotten a brilliant idea.

"I can give you short cuts! _Short cuts!_"

"_Shadow Clone Jutsu!_" I yelled, fighting the smile off of my face. I watched the kid as mini explosions came up all around me; I couldn't wait to see this. He stopped and looked up, just as my hundreds of clones erupted from their clouds. Just as I had hoped, he smiled.

"That's…! That's _awesome…!_" The kid freed himself and came to watch us up close. I could feel them next to me, but it wasn't like having a million eyes at once. It was more like having a hundred thousand identical twins at a time, and they always did exactly what you wanted them to do without you having to say it.

I was just too awesome to handle.

"That's nothing." Ebisu walked towards the center of my Shadow Clones, not sure which one was the real thing, and smirked. _That's right… keep laughing… _I smiled back at him. "I'm not Mizuki."

I made the tiger seal with my hands, and my clones followed. _I know you're not Mizuki. Mizuki wasn't a perv. _"_Transform!_" My voice echoed around me as our Chakra worked together, making us one, yet a thousand at the same time.

You should've seen the look on his face.

At first he just stood there, staring at us. What was he going to do in front of hundreds of identical naked women?

He was going to sit there and take it, because I would make him, and it would be fucking funny.

We all piled on top of him, and I wrapped my arm around his neck. It was really gross and bony, but believe me, it was completely and totally worth it.

"Oh! Master Ebisu!" I moaned. His eyes rolled back into his head, his sunglasses flew off of his face, and blood shot out of his nose, pushing him off the floor like a rocket. He ended up falling over, pale and cold, and we couldn't stop laughing.

It felt like a small, completely uselessl weight got lifted off my chest as I let both Jutsu go, and I just stood there still holding half the hand symbol and laughing my ass off.

"Did you like my Harem Jutsu?" This weird warm, gooey feeling filled my heart, and I got all mushy down in my stomach. _Why am I so happy? _I tried to think. _Oh yeah. That guy just got fucked over! Believe it! _When Ebisu groaned in response, the kid cleared his throat.

"How about you?" I chuckled, turning to Chipped Tooth. "You can appreciate my brilliance, right?" But, because he couldn't just let me live out the moment, I saw him looking like a depressed little kid, staring at the floor. I looked around awkwardly. Well, what would _you _say? "Cheer up, kid." I almost felt sorry for him. Why was he so freaking depressed? That was hilarious, and he didn't laugh. Not even a little. "You don't have to listen to the closet perv anymore." His glare turned malicious before he started screaming.

"I can't even beat my stupid four-eyed teacher!" I blinked, watching him spill his guts out. It felt like he slapped me in the face, but he hadn't even offended me.

_You can beat him, you just need someone to acknowledge you first. _

"I want to be Hokage so badly! I want everyone to recognize me so… _so _badly! Why isn't that enough?" He looked at me like he was about to cry, and I sighed. _Way to ruin my fuck-up day, kid._

"It isn't that easy."

_You need to start at the bottom to get to the top. _

"The Hokage are the best Ninja that there ever were." _I'm going to get there, and so can you. _"If you want to be the Hokage, everyone has to believe in you." You_, not your grandpa. _

"I've been through a lot already, and I'm only twelve." _He had no idea. _"But after going through so much, I've finally found two people who do, and they mean the world to me." _Emotional gut spilling, here we come. _I pictured Iruka Sensei and Chiasa, standing side by side as I wore that headband on my forehead, smiling at me.

"It's taken twelve years… just for two people." _And it's taken you eight years for one. _"So you better push yourself." _Get rid of the Honorable Grandson. We'll kill our curses together. _

"For what?" He sounded like he was really thinking about what I was saying. I didn't even know what I was saying half the time, so I couldn't help but smile. _Maybe I've gotten three in twelve years, huh? _

"It's hard becoming Hokage." A wind blew by us, and I turned around, facing my back to him. "And there's no such thing as short cuts." I could feel his stare on my back; his shocked, immature stare. _You're still going to have to beat me. _

"Hah!" His voice mocked mine and he stomped on the grass, probably turning to face away from me. "Who do you think you are, lecturing me like that?" _Your friend. _There was a long pause, and I watched the leaves fly off of the trees, get carried away by the wind, and disappear.

"I won't be your apprentice anymore." His voice was colder than the wind on my face. _You have nothing left to learn from me. _

"From here on out, we're rivals." _Not today, kid. _I smiled at him, but not widely enough to give him the wrong idea.

"That sucks for you, because tomorrow, I'm graduating from the Academy." _Tomorrow, I'll be one step closer to our dream. _"But still… we'll be rivals someday, when we fight to be Hokage." _You'll get there, but until then... _I turned around and started walking to the Village, when I thought better of myself.

"Let's look forward to that, Konohamaru."

_I'm acknowledging you. _

_The number on the door stared him in the face, taunting him. These numbers could be the last thing he saw; the last person that he'd ever think about could be his brother. _

_303, they said. The same number that, nine years ago, tested his brother. It said the same thing to him as it had back then, boldly, coming right out. _

Try me.

I could die right here. The demon could easily kill me. _But it was him or the Village, so he knew what he had to do. _

_Today, both he and Chiasa Uzumaki would die. _

_He gulped and lifted up a shaky hand, slowly inching it towards the handle. Sweat rolled down his face as he bit his lip, and he couldn't feel his legs. His world started to spin as something cool and smooth slid across his hand. He knew he must have made it. Just as he was about to pull down, ready to finish the two of them, something grabbed his shoulder. _

_Mitate let out a shout and fell to his knees, dropping the door handle like a paper bomb. He looked up through his blurry vision at the silhouette standing above him, shivering. He didn't know who it was until he started talking, but that didn't console him much._

_"If you open that door, you're going to die." He said, reading a book as he spoke. _


	5. Yang

Chapter 5

Yang

CHIASA

The first rule of vulnerability: When in the face of the enemy, a Ninja must _never _act surprised.

In the Academy, I had worked so hard. I wasn't the smartest, but I made sure I wasn't stupid, and it worked. Every day I'd go to school, scribble down some Ninja rules, and leave. Every single day, I'd memorize them by the thousands.

I was weak, I was defenseless, and I had no stamina. I couldn't, on top of all of that, afford to be an idiot. I knew it like the words were inscribed on my skull; they were big, they were bold, and they were obvious.

There were five, two thousand page books filled with Ninja rules. Every rule was ranked from one to one hundred thousand; from critical to useless. Supposedly, when a person followed every single rule down to the last comma and period, they were perfect. That was the definition of "Shinobi."

At first, I had thought that this woman was one. There have been two in recorded history, both of which were dead. She, though… When you looked at her, you got slapped in the face. She was everything that I thought one would look like, but she wasn't.

She was flawed.

After I had asked her about my Chakra, even though it was just for a second, she stiffened. Her jaw dropped and her eyebrows almost touched her hair line, until she realized her mistake a second later and went back to her stoic little act.

It was no use, though; I caught her. Barely, but still… She was human, after all.

A little smirk spread across my face. This woman in front of me… was surprised. She must not have been used to being caught off guard, because I got her, and she was furious. Though, because she couldn't break another rule of vulnerability, she put on a straight face.

Nervously, I looked her up and down. I jumped as the breeze touched my back, but I stayed focused on her. My heart was speeding as usual as I gulped, ready to take my opportunity while it was still there.

Okay, so maybe I was kind of stupid.

"You're vulnerable." Our eyes met, and she clenched her jaw shut. _Why am I doing this? _ I tried to trick people a lot; especially the ones that I didn't like. I found that the best part about logic was proving people wrong. "No matter what you do now… nothing is going to change that. As soon as you lifted an eyebrow, it was over." She had played her own way into check mate. If she had just stayed surprised, she would've looked weak. Since she corrected herself, she just showed me that it was a mistake- that she was trying to keep a straight face, but she failed, and _still_ looked weak.

She flared her nostrils and took deep breaths; now she was angry, another mistake. With chattering teeth, I smiled.

_There's no point in this. _I told myself. _Even if you catch her… it doesn't change anything. She can still kill you. _

"Vulnerability Rule number three…" Her lips parted for half a second, ready to suck in air and gasp, but she knew that, at the climax of my scrutiny, I'd catch her. She knew the rules, too. "A Shinobi must never show anger." I honestly expected her to flip out; that was what was supposed to happen. I'd get someone, they'd get mad, and I'd run. That was how it always went, but I wasn't going anywhere, and she wasn't even mad.

Instead, she smiled.

_What the hell…? _ Well, she could've been smiling for two reasons: One, she found it funny that I was even trying, or two, she _was _mad, but she'd kill me regardless.

It was probably the latter.

My eyes darted around as my heart made its way up my throat. I wasn't even sure if there was a way out of this place, or how long I'd have to run to get there. She was insanely fast, even more so than me, so I probably wouldn't even make it a few feet away from her.

I felt my hands get sweaty, and my mind shut down; even my speed was useless. If I didn't have that, then I didn't have anything.

As her smile spread, she drilled two cute little dimples into her cheeks.

Oh that's right, now you're an _adorable _killer.

I didn't know why, but it seemed like everything about her… made me trust her less. She looked like she was seventeen now, but with those little dots on the sides of her lips… she could've been three-years-old at the same time.

I curled my fingers up and glared at her until I started sweating It was the weirdest thing; as I watched her start to look younger and younger again, the back of my neck, under my hair, got really, uncomfortably hot.

I exhaled, and steam came out of my mouth.

I jumped back, staring at the white mist that I had just made with my own body. Bunches of it started forming around me like little white clouds. It was everywhere, so thick that it pretty much blocked out my entire view of the place.

Was this what death looked like? I bit my lip, and she laughed again.

"Why do you always think I'm trying to kill you? This is the fifteenth time, at least…" I just stopped hyperventilating and looked at her. My eyes must've been pretty blank, because she just laughed harder.

What she said was obviously sarcasm… I should've just shaken it off and kept going. I should still be scared, jumping and squeaking and calling myself weak every time she moved a finger, but I wasn't. The question meant so much more than she realized…

And the memories came flooding back.

One by one, a flash of a scene flung itself into my mind, and disappeared just as quickly.

_A little girl with short brown curls who had just learned to walk was waddling out of the shadow of a building. Her ribs stuck out so far that her lungs must've been in a foot deeper, but the smile on her face was precious. As she felt the sun on her pasty, deprived skin, she looked around her for the first time. As she was glancing in every direction so frantically, her big brown eyes landed on a pair of dark, black ones._

_They were glaring at her. _

_Her smile was gone in an instant, and she just watched him as a tear streamed out of her eye. After what felt like a lifetime, the woman next to him noticed her, too. _

_Her eyes were exactly the same. _

"Mommy?_" She whispered, "_Daddy…?" _The first two things she had ever said. Her voice was light, innocent, and pure. When the other people on the street heard it, they turned around and looked at her, too. They started to come closer, but not to close, never taking their eyes off of her. _

_Soon, hundreds of them were gathered near the man and the woman, and they watched her like she was a germ. She looked around with wide, confused eyes, and slowly backed up, whimpering, behind the building again._

_The same girl stood in the same spot, three years later. She hadn't eaten in a week, and she hadn't stepped into the sun in nine months. _

_But she was always watching._

_Her big, bouncy curls almost reached down to her shoulders; she had barely put on any more weight. A man that had walked past the ally a few times was sitting on a bench in front of a playground, eating a steaming bowl of soup and drinking a big bottle of bear. She could smell the alcohol from across the street._

_She tried so hard to breathe through her mouth, scared of what would happen if she used her nose, but something forced her to smell it. She knew that if she didn't, she would starve, so she let the steam tease her, and pull her out into the light. _

_A broken bear bottle was stabbed into the dirt in front of her. She was screaming, pleading for help. The man who had thrown it had walked away, and she was still hungry. _

_No one would hear her, and the glass wedged into her foot oozed blood onto the road. _

_She had finally been happy, two years later, for a time, until she started running again. _

_She tried timing her breath as she sprinted through the forest away from the man who was chasing her. The robe that covered half of his face had pretty pictures on it. She had tried to see them, but as she went to feel them, to see if they felt like real clouds, she looked up to see row upon row of shiny, razor sharp teeth. _

_"Come on!" He called out to her; she was running out of energy. "I promise I won't cut you in _half_!"_

_Chiasa Uzumaki had just turned five. She walked, still crying and still in shock, to the only cemetery in the village, where he lay, cold and dead and lifeless._

_There was a big, beautiful red rose that she carried in her gentle, shaky hands. It was for him, of course, but she wasn't expecting forgiveness. The only sound in the entire world was her feet dragging across that road again. None of the villagers made a sound; they already knew, of course, and they hated her for it. _

I'm sorry… _Every breath she took, every inch she moved: _I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. _The gates were eerily black, and when she walked inside, he was right in front of her. _

_And so was she. _

_She froze in her tracks as the girl, so much bigger than her, yet a month younger, stood up and turned around. _

_Chiasa knew this was coming._

_A wind blew by both of them; hers was a wind of solitude, the girl's was a wind of change. It rang in her ears as the girl lifted up a kunai knife. Chiasa held the rose to her heart, ready to take exactly what she deserved. The girl aimed the knife perfectly, and threw it. _

_The last thing that Chiasa saw were those eyes, glaring at her again. _

I stared at the ground, feeling like someone had just taken a bite out of my insides. _Why _did I feel like she wanted to kill me? _Why _didn't I trust anyone?

I _couldn't_. No one would _ever _understand.

"Because everyone… has always…" I spoke lightly, so she had to stop laughing to hear me. She picked her head up a little- she probably saw that I was depressed. Why did she _care though_? "…wanted to kill me." It was sad, but I couldn't remember one time in my life when I wasn't running from someone, or being scared of something…

Not once in my life had I ever been loved. I didn't even think I knew what the thing was. I thought I loved Naruto, but how could I be sure? How could anyone ever _know for sure _if they loved something?

I looked away darkly; I had asked the same question before, to a girl who had, shockingly, tried to kill me.

You might want to learn from me when I tell you this: _Getting lost in your own depression is a bad idea. _She was right in front of me; too far to reach out and touch, but too close to have to walk to. I screamed, and jumped back. My head was spinning, I felt nauseous, and I really just wanted to leave.

The thing was, though, I had no idea where I was anymore. Everything was completely white and sweltering, that we could've been anywhere. I could walk through here for hundreds of miles and see the exact same thing 'till I ended up starving myself.

"It's okay," she whispered. My shoulders slumped as soon as she opened her mouth, and I got lost in the blank world around us. What was this place? What were we doing here?

No.

I wouldn't get tricked and lured in by her again.

"Come with me… I can make you feel better, I promise." She held out her hand for me to take, and looked me in the eyes.

I wanted to call her a bitch, push her away from me, and run. I knew exactly what she was trying to do. I had been used before… this was exactly the same thing.

But still… her eyes were so pretty and warm, even through their deadly color. _Turn away… leave right now, while she wants your trust… it's the perfect time, and maybe the only one… _But as her gaze held me there, I _wanted _to stay.

Damn it.

In a failed attempt at keeping my hand steady, I slowly lifted my arm up and went to take hers. Slowly, I laced my fingers through hers, not even thinking about looking away. It went against everything I believed in; trusting people like this was stupid. Trusting almost _anyone _was stupid.

But there I was, and look at me.

As soon as our skin touched, my body went rigid. I started holding my breath as I just looked at her, completely lost for words. After all, I had felt something like this before. There was still no way to describe it.

Electricity ran through both of us, binding us together through something that I was too young to understand. It fixed our eyes together, but hers didn't look surprised; they wouldn't let me let go of her hand or say a single word. Yes, I had definitely felt this before; it had scared me out of my mind because, as much as I hated to admit it, I thought I knew what it was.

With Sasuke.

But this… was a different spark. It wasn't an awkward, mind-blowing one, but something that couldn't be changed… something that had been set in stone since the day I was born, because it was my fate, and I couldn't change that.

I was always meant to do this.

"It's time you knew… where you came from." She spoke softly, as though not to set me off. I barely noticed that the entire world had turned white; if I didn't know where I was before, now you can forget it.

_Where I came from. _How the hell would she know?

As soon as she said the words, the steam around us started scurrying all over the place, leaving open air in some spaces, and clumping together in others. It kind of reminded me of my pathetic little Chakra; white, hurried, and lacking. The girl was quiet as she closed her eyes, somehow looking more at home here than she had in the forest.

"In the beginning of time…" her voice wasn't hers; it was ancient and monotonous, like it was part of the Earth that I couldn't see. She was nature; I was talking to her in the flesh. It was amazing, how unified a person could be…

Especially a near perfect one.

"There was a Village, with a population of fifty three people." Right after she said the words, another world solidified where we stood. It was absolutely amazing, what she was doing… I knew that no Genjutsu was powerful enough to even come close.

I felt the cold air blow on my face; the same air that was sweltering a second ago. My knees got a little week as the ground rose, but I stayed standing with her hand in mine.

I still hated that.

Mountains; taller than the ones from before, and far more beautiful. There was an entire range of them, surrounding where I stood. Even though I was obviously on a tall hill, it was nothing next to them, and I was still in a valley. There was forest all around us, until the timberline cut off the trees; even still, the wildflowers and animals lived higher.

"The Village had nothing to hide from, and nothing to be exposed to. This was before the era of the Hidden Villages, and before the era of the Ninja." Five symbols appeared in front of me in mid air; I knew them from memorization for tests; I'd written individual essays on all of them. These were the major Hidden Villages; the Five Great Nations. There was barely anything recorded before them; I had never even known that there _was _such a time.

"It's name was Shizen, and it was one of the most beautiful places in the world." I almost heard sadness in her voice as she spoke about it; it must've been ancient history, if no one could even find the ruins. How did she know all this?

But again, after she said the words, buildings started to go up all around us, forming a cute little town on the hill. It wasn't like Konoha at all; the houses were made out of wood, not tall, intimidating concrete. Even though it was so tiny and crushable next to a place like the Leaf Village, I could tell what she meant.

It was, in its own way, beautiful.

I really fell in love with it when the people started coming out, walking around us, talking over us, seeing through us. The way they laughed, though there weren't many laughs to hear, made me happy. Something about it was just so much happier than home… so much kinder.

"It's amazing, isn't it?" She smiled wistfully, watching a red-haired girl and a blonde boy chase each other back and forth, giggling until they fell over. I had never seen anything like it… In the Ninja world, no one could be carefree like them. There was nothing that actually said that you couldn't be, but there was some awful, unspoken rule against it that we all knew since before we were born. Life now was way too hard to be able to be happy like _that_.

"Yeah…" It was painful to watch, after a while. I wished that I'd lived there, but that wasn't possible, and I knew it. It was killing me.

"The people of Shizen were a normal, happy people who thrived for years on optimism and acceptance." It didn't sound very normal to me. How could anything like that fall, or exist in the first place? How could that turn into this, if this was where we all came from?

"The world was perfect to them, until the Shussan Plague came." I gave a little jump at the word- even the _name _sounded awful. "Shussan" meant childbirth; I could already see where this was going.

All of the people froze in place, like they all just spontaneously turned to ice, and started fading. The sun streaked through the sky, 'till it was dusk along the horizon. Everyone was inside, most candles were out, and the world was sleeping. Not a single soul was roaming around except for this woman and I.

That's what I had thought, until the girl with the red hair came slowly walking to the edge of the hill. Her eyes belonged here- they were big, happy, and a surprisingly vibrant green. Even as I looked at her more closely in the dark, I realized how beautiful she was. She couldn't have been more than five, but she had perfect tan skin without a single dot or freckle. Her cheeks were a light pink- the same as mine, and her hair fell down on her back in long, butt-length even curls.

I couldn't explain it, but when I looked at her… a lump formed in my throat, the skin under my eyes started burning, and I almost started to cry. I made absolutely no sense- I had never seen anything like this girl in my life- why was looking at her so impossible? Did she remind me of someone? It wasn't anyone that I could consciously remember.

It was so frustrating.

I tried biting my own teeth as the little girl walked out to the edge of the cliff. I didn't even feel her as she walked right through my skin with a smile on her face that was half real, and half dazed.

It was like she was possessed.

"Back then…" There was a new edge to her voice, and she stared right at me now, instead of at the town. "All roses were red. The only black thing in the entire world was the sky- there wasn't anything else that was even close, not even in animal fur." As soon as she said it, I understood. The look of apprehension could only mean one thing; this was going to be bad.

A black rose was growing out from the edge of that hill.

The little girl walked toward it, half smiling, half possessed. As she walked passed me, it was everything I had not to grab her, or yell at her to stop. She wouldn't hear me, and she was untouchable.

I couldn't stop shaking and staring at her beautiful hair. I had never actually seen a red-head before; we learned that they were all killed off, about forty years ago. It was so weird seeing one in real life, but I couldn't explain why I felt the need to care about her so much.

_Who are you? _I looked after her, at the green apron that hugged her back. _What do you have to do with me? _I felt like screaming. This was worse than feeling myself break under the "angel." This was worse than losing my self control when I fought Sasuke.

This was worse than looking Mizuki in the eyes, realizing, too late, that I wasn't ready to die.

"Why is she up… so late?" My voice caught in the middle of the sentence. _Don't tear your hair out, and don't scream. By the end of this, you'll know who you are. You'll understand everything. _I was beginning to seriously doubt that, but I still told it to myself over and over again. The girl sighed.

"Don't call me 'the girl.'" She didn't say it irritably, but it kind of pissed _me _off. She completely avoided my question, first of all, and second of all, what was I _supposed _to call her? I raised an annoyed eyebrow at her, and heat licked my throat as the blood rushed to my face.

"You'll know soon enough, if you're smart." I swear, if I wasn't a weakling… "Just call me 'Akari,' for now, okay?" Akari? _Akari _meant light, and it seemed completely irrelevant at first, but I just nodded.

"Okay, _Akari, _can you answer my question… please?" The fact that she could kill me whenever the hell she wanted still hovered over our heads. She sighed, and turned toward the scene again. Her eyes were distant as she watched the little girl, frozen with the process of the story, start towards the flower.

"Do you know, Chiasa?" I wasn't sure, but I could swear that I saw her lips- which were, by the way, getting younger by the second- quiver, and her voice tremble as she saw it. It was painful to watch for her too, then; was it for the same reason? Did she know what it was? But she just closed her eyes, trying to calm herself, and spoke gently. "The curiosity of a child… do you know what that's like?" As we watched her lean in towards the flower, about to pick it, I felt a hundred years old.

I didn't know it very well, but yes, I _did_. It was a distant memory, one that was killed off almost as soon as it was started, but still… it was there. It was there like anything else would've been, bright and happy and brief. Was that when I was truly happy? How could I possibly have been… if I had never even seen the sun? No matter what I threw at it to try and counter it, it still stood. I couldn't beat the facts; no one could. Strength didn't matter in that respect. There would always be that naïve time, when I did want to know how the world worked; I couldn't rewrite the past, just like I couldn't stop that girl from bending down, reaching for the stem, and pricking her finger on a spike.

Because it was history.

She was like a girl in a fairy tale- the legends that idiots believed in. She'd see something amazing, something new, and let curiosity get the best of her. I didn't know how the flower got there, but I knew what it would cause.

I stopped wondering a long time ago.

"She was looking for a rose to give to her mother… for her birthday." There was something unspoken between us; something unneeded was understood. The little, beautiful, narrow-minded girl's mother… was pregnant.

And the scene fell apart.

Blood dripped from the girl's finger as she ran away, ecstatic, so happy… she had no idea that she had just ruined any idea of perfection… ever. Her green apron flowed behind her as she ran into one of the little houses, and I looked away.

"As you can imagine…" Akari sounded like she'd just eaten something disgustingly bitter, and looked like she was about to snap and let a thousand emotions spill out of her at once.

I felt the same way.

"The plague was in the flower." She didn't half to tell me what had happened after that. She was completely right- it was disgusting. This entire world had been perfect, and that perfection was killed in an instant. It was amazing, yet not at all surprising, how one little thing could change an entire life forever. Akari nodded solemnly.

"The little girl's mother died, as did the baby… and the plague was passed on." We were in the daylight again; women lay on the floor, some of them having big, pregnant stomachs, some of them holding lifeless children in their hands, and some... some were young. Younger than _me_.

How could this possibly tell me who I was? I swallowed.

"The curse of the Black Rose, as she called it, forced the victim to live… as they watched everything else die." She was a little older now, maybe eight, staring distantly through the mountains, horrified. She stood in the center of all of the dying bodies, with tears streaming down her face and a shaky, concealed posture.

_I know what you're feeling_. I didn't have any sympathy for her, but I didn't blame her for this. I was a dumb kid at one point, too. I thought I could trust my life in the world's hands, and let it take care of me. Part of growing up, as I'd found, was learning things the hard way.

"As society advanced," we weren't outside anymore; the girl was gone, and we were in a longer wooden cabin that was practically empty except for three white-sheeted beds, a long counter that stretched between walls, and a man, working on it with some plants laid out in front of him.

One of them was a red rose.

"Medicine evolved. When there were sick people, others became doctors to fight off the Shussan Plague." It was just like that… when something happened that people didn't like in the real world, other people came and stopped it.

Just like they wanted to stop me.

A woman appeared, looking more like a skeleton than I did, obviously pregnant. She stared, half-alive, at the ceiling, lying in one of the beds and whispering to herself. Her voice was soft, and she carried out the syllables of every word. I squinted my eyes, to try and see her better.

She was praying.

The doctor's face was shadowy as he walked towards her, holding a flask. There was a generous amount of this thick, red goop in it; it was more clumpy and dense than blood, but it was too slick and shiny to be solid.

_That's the medicine... _She was his guinea pig; if he healed her, he'd be a hero. I could tell by the way he walked- the dramatic, arrogant footsteps of an actor- that he was too sure of himself, and that he had a serious case of narcissism.

"You're very analytical, you know." I jumped, but I didn't look at her. I could feel Akari's smirk burning a hole in the side of my face without seeing it. _I want to get back to the story. _She did, too; there was a little pain in her voice, even while she was teasing me. I understood it; it hurt to remember.

"No," I stared forward, trying to drop the hint, "I just hate people." She chuckled, but it wasn't funny.

The doctor, now on play, put his hand behind the poor woman's head, and gently lifted her face up. I clenched my fists and bit my lip; _He wants to save her_, I tried to convince myself, but the more I looked at him, the more I just wanted to take a Kunai knife and kill him.

I was really a disgusting person.

She looked up at him with trustful eyes as he tipped the flask down, waiting for it to creep through her throat. _How could anyone trust so easily? Her life is in his hands. This is ridiculous_. This is why I didn't believe in legends; it's unrealistic. No one trusts anyone like that in this world. This never could've happened.

But, even as she was about to die, and knew it, she forced a weak smile for him. _Idiot… _I looked away, getting sick to my stomach. _This doesn't make you strong. It makes you stupid. _I felt like going in the corner, curling up in a ball, and balling my fucking eyes out.

Instead? The same picture just appeared right in front of me. I stopped, thought about this for a second, and turned around. _Akari, you bitch… _She was never going to let me get away from this.

I'd be stuck in this pointless story forever.

To my amazement, though, her cheeks flushed with color, and a different kind of fire burned inside of her. This wasn't the one from a woman who, on her deathbed, was trying to be strong; this was the fire of a woman who, on her deathbed, was going to live. I just stared at the two of them, the woman rejoicing on the inside, and the man overly pleased with himself, as the two slowly began to fade.

The room disappeared into blackness, and the last thing I heard was a high-pitched shriek, a sort of young, horrible-yet-sweet sound. I'd never heard anything like it before that I could remember, but even though it was so hideous, I felt the urge to cover it; to calm it, and protect it with my life.

I blinked as the blackness around me turned into grass, a valley, and a beautiful baby-blue sky. Akari looked so happy here- so at home, so _belonging_. But as she looked around, she seemed to remember that nothing like this existed anymore, and that she was only fooling herself.

_Welcome to my world_. I rolled my eyes.

"Time past again…" She looked at the floor with dimly-lit eyes, but her voice was still the Earth's. "Slowly, the red roses started dying off. The Shussan plague was curable, but the doctor still needed the medicine." _And he was hailed as a miracle worker, _I thought bitterly. As soon as she brought him up, he was there. He stood awkwardly in front of us, looking around frantically for something.

There were a few more wrinkles on his flat-looking face, but there wasn't a single grey hair on his head. By the looks of him, I'd say that he was almost forty. Not much time had passed, then.

_That's right. _He didn't actually do anything wrong; I had no idea why I hated him so much. _Karma's a bitch, isn't it? _I watched as he combed the meadow dry with sweaty hands, scrutinizing it for something; something that he obviously needed.

"There was another pregnant woman waiting in the hospital, sucked dry from the plague, and all he needed was one more flower. There was nothing there, but one more black rose." My heart sunk into my chest, my jaw shot down, and, if I had the strength, I would've fallen to the floor.

That woman was going to die.

Right on queue, the doctor turned and saw it; it's stem was dark, it's petals were an eerie charcoal, and it had this air around it… It reminded me of Mizuki, when the monster inside of him resurfaced, or Hibachi, or the blue man.

It just made me feel like I was going to die.

"Why is saving _this _woman so important to him?" When he was dealing with the first, he was so sure of himself. I could tell by everything he did and every way he moved that he honestly couldn't care less about what happened to anyone but himself. What was different this time? He was going to live, regardless.

"The woman in the hospital…" Akari's voice was edgy on a whole new level now, and it amazed me. I could feel it harnessing in my own chest; sadness that made the base of my eyes tingle, trying to hold back the tears; anger that pressed on my skull made me want to scream, but I couldn't open my mouth and I couldn't cry. There was pity for him, sadness for the woman, and anger at something that I was too young to know. "… was his wife." In a flash, the doctor's back was turned to us. He walked away looking at the ground, solemnly, like he was going to go to a funeral.

The flower was in his hand.

She was beautiful- I could see it even through her disease. She had long, think black hair, shiny even with no light in the room, and her pale blue eyes gave off as much radiance as the sun, even while knowing that they were going to die.

"It's going to be okay…" The lie was evident in his voice, and I gulped. Akari was stiff next to me, watching them as though this was her own memory. The woman sighed and flashed a smile at him full of teeth rotted from sickliness.

I tried to keep myself from getting sick.

"Thank you…" Her voice was nice and soft and harmless, and I could hear it like it was my own even though it was barely more than a whisper.

I wished I could turn away.

The medicine in the flask was black this time, and she seemed to notice the difference, but she trusted her husband with her life. She knew that no matter what happened, he wouldn't let anything hurt her.

A sob caught in my throat as I squinted my eyes together- that was the kind of trust that killed people; I knew that like I new what a lie was. I saw things like this happen every day… someone trusting someone else, and getting blown to shit because of it.

I couldn't even begin to explain the look in her eyes. I could swear to you that I'd never seen anything like them before, but it was almost like I had… in a very blurry, unrealistic dream. There was passion in them… mixed with trust and so much emotion that it made _my _head spin. Everything that the woman had ever thought was out on display, just in that gaze. She'd do anything for the man in front of her- even give her life.

"W-what a… stupid…" I was practically lost for words. How could such a wonderful person die for someone like that? Akari ignored me.

As the last drop made it's way down her throat, she sighed, and closed her eyes.

The tension between me and Akari was almost identical to the electricity from before; I knew only the two of us could feel it. I watched with remorse as relief washed over the doctors face, and the ghost of a light smile started to form.

_You idiot… _I shook my head, and the screaming began.

It took me off guard, and I jumped back when the world beneath my feet gave a little spin. Chills trickled down my spine as I stared, not blinking, at the impossible scene in front of me.

Her body was revolting up, and her neck pushed her head back as she opened her mouth wide, letting out the most disgusting blood curdling scream I had ever heard.

It set my teeth on edge, and all I could do was stand there and take it.

Her voice bounded off the walls, exploding through the little hospital and banging around through the mountains. It was much lower, much more prominent than the soft one that she had before.

I lifted up my hands to my hair, eyes plastered open by some invisible tape. I grabbed a handful right by the roots, twisted it up in my fist, and started yanking it.

Again, just like the headband that was in my lap hundreds of years ago… It didn't affect me at all.

This was horrible, and Akari had no reason for showing it to me. What did this have to do with _my _life? What did this have to do with _my _story?

I was about to find out.

I could only stand there and watch as this monstrous black flame shot out of her throat like a laser and started encasing her body in darkness. It sent chills throughout the room, making the small little village on the cute little hill with the warm air turn to ice in a second.

I couldn't look away, I couldn't cover my ears, and I couldn't close my eyes. Even if I clawed my own face off… Akari would force me to see this somehow. Whenever I'd blink, this woman's face would be in my mind, staring at me from behind my own eyelids.

I looked across the room and saw him standing there- watching the light leave _his _eyes, like _he _was the one dying. His lips quivered as he watched the love of his life fade away while he couldn't do anything about it; a feeling that, at that point, I could only really hear about. He looked like someone had hit him in the gut, punched him in the heart, and sucked the life out of him.

He was standing in the same position as me.

The room went black again, and her scream faded in a second. I felt released, like my own person again, and I dropped to my knees, gasping for air.

_What the hell… _I stared at the floor, remembering those care free laughs from those two little kids that ran circles around me… without a care in the world.

I never got to live like that.

_How could a place like that… become a place like this? _The smiles on everyone's faces… the way they all unconditionally loved everyone and everything around them… I gritted my teeth. _Just because of one… little mistake? _That little girl fucked up the entire fate of the world.

Because of a _flower_.

I didn't even realize that I was screaming until Akari put her hand on my back and started making these neutral, breathy sounds. She almost sounded like a cooing mother, or a tired owl. To me, they were almost one and the same.

"I'm sorry you had to see that." There was actual pain in her voice, and I scraped my fingers across the ground and into a fist. _God… damn it… _I shook my head, feeling my chest clench up.

"What the fuck…" Even though I could only whisper to her, there was acid in my voice. I turned around and glared at her, hating her more every second.

_I hate you… God, I hate you. I hated you while I was your puppet, I hated you while I was a stranger, and I hate you now. _

"Who the hell _are _you?! What did any of that have to do with me?! What do you _want_?!" I stood up, shaking, and actually considered begging her to let me go. I didn't want to sit through this and watch people get tortured through some made-up story; I didn't want to feel immobile and helpless here _too_.

I couldn't believe it was happening, but I actually missed Konoha.

She just sighed and stared past me. _This woman… _I narrowed my eyes at her.

"Don't talk about the story in the past-tense… I was just getting started." Before I could even think about what the hell she just said, she raised a glowing white finger and pointed somewhere in the distance. "Look." The Earth's voice was there again, and I turned to see where she was facing.

I could see a close up of her face, lifeless, almost, but smiling. She held a small little blanket bundle in the palms of her hands, and looked like the happiest, most purest person in the world.

The sweet little screechy sounds were coming from what she was holding again, complete echoes of his mother's voice. The only thing that I could see from him was straight, surprisingly volumized black hair. The rest of him was concealed, for only his mother to see.

I felt my eyes get heavy. _Mom… _I thought in my head, watching the woman cradle it like it was worth dying for. Something wet slid down my cheek, and the red haired girl's face popped into my mind. _Did you look at me like that? Was I worth dying for, back then? _I didn't know how long my mother knew me for, if she ever did… but she was history. Gone.

And she was never coming back.

"Yoku…" The woman whispered, staring up at her husband. The child's screams grew a little louder as his mother's eyes started closing, and the doctor looked like he was on fire.

God, they were killing me here.

"Take… care… of… Yin." She whispered.

And she was gone.

The black flames rose up around the child as soon as she died, so thick that it actually blacked both him and his father out of my sight.

I was at a loss for words.

"She named him after his father, and the name came to mean "darkness," symbolically." Akari's voice changed as she talked about him; I can't explain it, but it was something that I'd heard before… whether I was the one speaking it, or someone else was speaking it to to me… The only thing that I knew for sure was that Akari was definitely… coming into this story somewhere.

As long as Yin was here, she would be, too.

"Yoku tried loving Yin as his wife wanted him to, but every time he looked at him, the only thing he could see was a murderer." Naruto's face popped into my head, and I shot my gaze at the floor. In the blackness under my feet, the lining of a tan, cut face formed. To this day, I'm still not sure if any of his other features formed, because as soon as his eyes grew bold, I was mesmerized.

They were big and beautiful, the color of midnight. I could only stare straight into them, wondering why I couldn't look away. I may have even started blushing- I'm not sure.

"Time passed," Akari went on, and the little boy's face started changing. "It was exactly three years later… that your story started." Yin looked a little older now; he had less baby fat, but the pain in his eyes made him look older than me…

I knew him. I didn't know how, but Yin and I were linked somehow. Was I supposed to be happy about that, because it was a tiny sliver of a piece to my identity, or devastated, because we shared the same fate?

No one deserved to live like this. I looked up into more blackness, and saw the strangest little thing… there, amongst all the black, was a single white dot.

_My story_.

Was she kidding, or was she actually serious this time?

We were back in the meadow, and I watched the white dot fade into a black one, slowly taking a form that I already knew too well. There was blood dripping down his cheek, streaming out of his eye like a tear. He looked around for something as frantically as his father had been; the spitting image.

"Earlier that day…" She didn't have to say it; I knew by the horrified look on his face, that out of breath feeling that he gave off…

Someone had beaten him, and I thought I knew who. I shook my head, and she nodded.

She knew, too.

"Ever since he could talk, he had worked in the hospital as his father's assistant." I could tell that he had his father's mind; his eyes scrutinized every last insect on every last blade of grass, craving knowledge, and there were bags under his eyes to show how hard he worked….

And this kid was three-years-old.

It wasn't right; the person he was was completely out of his control, but I knew from the bottom of my heart that everyone despised him for it. I could picture the way that he felt so clearly it was depressing… I could see him rushing home through his own, shameless face, not shedding a tear.

He had his mother's spirit.

I stared at him wistfully as he looked around for what his father needed. _You… _I turned my head away from him. _I'm just like you… _Akari watched him as though he were her own son, taking every move he made to heart, counting his every breath.

_Except weaker._

Akari was a little obsessive.

_Akari, have you been waiting? _The passion in her eyes burned, just as Yin's mother's had as she said her final words to her husband. _You've been waiting to get to this part so you could see this little boy again, haven't you...? _She pretended like she didn't hear me.

"The last woman with the Shussan Plague was in the hospital, and Yoku had sent Yin out for the last rose. That day, each and every villager prayed that there wouldn't be a repeat from that fateful day, or, _Kuraihi_, as it became known. Yin knew it, and he knew that they'd think even worse of him if he made another one of… _his kind_." Akari crinkled her nose as she said it. _His kind_… his black chakra was swarming under the skin of his hand, tainting it an ashen color.

His kind, the Shinobi.

Right when I was starting to like that son of a bitch… _No, _I pictured the doctors face in my mind, and I imagined myself stabbing it. _You're kid should be lucky to have you. He should be thankful that, through all the hate he's getting for being different, he has a Dad that will hold him no matter what. This is how you welcome him… _I bit my lip and shook my head. _This is how you show him that he has somewhere to be safe._

"His heart was pounding the whole way down the hill…" _You really are like me, Yin. _One tear. I had only one tear for him.

It was enough. "… but there were no black roses in the meadow that day." His beautiful eyes darted around until they stopped on something behind me. His face lit up- still that child's curiosity- when he saw it, but he was scared nonetheless. I looked over my shoulder, and as it glowed in the sun and its light bounced off of my face, my eyes widened, too.

Suddenly, I knew everything.

"You…" I let my forehead overshadow my eyes as I whispered to Akari, knowing exactly what was coming next.

Obviously, I was spot on.

"You're…" I was about to fall over, but all she did was smile.

"It's okay… you're going to be okay…" A man with dark circles under his eyes and light brown hair held another beautiful, drained woman's hand like his life depended on it. Tears streamed down his face as he tried his best to smile for her, and she took her other hand and rubbed it across his cheek, tracing a line from his forehead to the tip of his chin.

I never really understood how two people could communicate that way… it was supposed to be affectionate, but it just made me sick to my stomach.

"I love you," she forced out as the doctor stepped closer. "No matter what." She turned away in an instant, looking up to where the doctor stood, and nodded to say she was ready.

I wished I was that strong.

Carefully, the doctor lifted the glass with the glowing white liquid up to her paled out lips, and brushed strands of her blond hair away. As it started to slide into her mouth, I heard someone whimper in the corner, back by the door. I peered around to see a tiny little child, crying, looking away from what could've been a death just like his mother's.

Yin.

Akari's face was dark as he went on, sobbing and watching his father's every move. _Why are you so close to him…? _I scrunched my eyebrows together, and looked back and forth between the two of them. Just as I was starting to see something in Akari's eyes… the air in the room turned to liquid heat.

It happened just like that; the first part of my story, the first realization- it was there. The woman's eyes filled with two shimmering, crystal blue tears that sparkled even through the darkness. Yoku, shocked and unmoving, held a beautiful little child in his hands, one who was letting off the most beautiful thing in the world.

My Chakra.

Her hair was as golden as the sun, and it spiraled down to her shoulders in lose little curls, much more controlled then my exotic ones. She had eye lashes as long as a pinkie finger, thick and dark and beautiful. The white flames that encased her reached out for me, drawing me in, as Akari's had… but these were happier. These belonged to a child, a little girl who didn't know what was in store for her.

They were pure.

I rubbed my eye involuntarily, wiping a tear off my face. _She's so beautiful… _my thoughts echoed the woman's words. She was the complete opposite of Yin; she gave off a completely different feeling. She took her little white hand and stretched out her arm, opening her mouth into a wide O and not even bothering to cry.

I don't know when I realized it. Maybe, in some awkward little part of my brain, the pieces were slowly and effortlessly getting put together, or maybe it just came to me. But, as Yoku shakily handed the baby to her mother, I turned to Akari one last time.

_I know who you are. _It was meaningless, but true. Her eyes went wide and she stole a glance at my face, giving away everything.

God, what an idiot I was… it was there, written in big back letters. The two Chakras. Darkness and Light. _Yami _and _Akari_.

_You're vulnerable again, Akari. _I smiled, watching as apprehension turned to shock and confirmation on her face. I knew I was right. _You're just giving yourself away._

"She's… perfect." As a mother's pride and tears filled the room, so did my own achievement. _Yes, I know exactly who you are… _

"Yang."


	6. Fate

Chapter Six

Fate

CHIASA

I stood still, holding my hand to my heart as the spine tingling sound of the knife against metal filled my head. The world was dark again, though Akari was still next to me, and the ear splitting _bang _echoed around the room with my thoughts.

There was a glint of red in his eye; I'd seen it before a thousand times. Drunk villagers had that look, the blue man did, and _she _did as I walked up to her, all those years ago…

It wanted murder, it wanted blood, and it wanted death.

_You… _I watched as his careful hands slowly carved into the metal brick he held. _Why do I feel so attached to you? I hate you… I hated you before, and now I just hate you more… _

But I could feel for him.

It was like being with Akari, where her emotions actually _seeped _into me; I knew exactly what was boiling up inside of him, and it was killing me. It was written on his face for the world to see, but nobody cared enough to read it. No one minded the man who was suffering inside, the man who watched the people he saved live happily.

No one except me.

I could see their light laughter in his eyes, cheering up the whole hillside _every day_, while he lived with his hardship, alone.

Chance had killed the love of his life, and I would probably never understand that. Even worse than that, he had to watch the three of them- Yang's family- live out the privilege that he'd kill for; a privilege that he gave to them.

He was stuck with Yin, who sulked in his own diversity.

Just metaphorically being in the same room with him made me _sick_, so why… why did I _understand_ him so well? His hatred… his anger… his murderous intent… I got it all; I'd had it all before. It was like that annoying ring on your alarm clock- unsettling, yet constantly counted on every single day.

The metal in his hand started to take shape, and I slowly started to recognize what he was holding.

"A year had passed since my birthday, but my life hadn't even started yet." _What is this… feeling? _The air dropped to subzero in a second, and my heart sped up. There was something _else _inside of him now, not just the idle threat from before… it made the soles of my feet tingle and sent chills all the way up to my brain, penetrating whatever stability I had to begin with. My eyes bulged, and I just stared at him… it was so silent that I could count our breaths, all three of us.

_You're not just an angry doctor… _The ends of his lips barely curled up, but they did… and for a second, I saw it.

There's always that one point between human and psychopath; that one dividing line that separates the sane from the bad-shit crazy.

He was there.

I could feel the darkness inside of him as though we were actually this close- like I could go over there and touch him, feel it course through my veins… and let it suffocate me. I knew what he was going to do, and I wished I could say that I couldn't believe what he was thinking.

_I was right about you_… Even though it was futile, I tried looking away. _You must have really loved her._ The crazy things people did for love… It was the most pointless emotion. I swore to myself right there that I'd never be so weak as to love a person… especially not when I saw him lift up his masterpiece.

He stood up out of his chair, sliding his fingers across the blades of the knife in his hand. A chuckle exploded out of his throat and shot through me, letting me take in the sound until I couldn't see him anymore.

_I don't… _a sharp warmth stabbed at me, but all I could think of was the hypnotized gleam in his eyes. _I don't want to turn into this_. The sheer realization enveloped me, and I felt almost… close to being… thawed.

Blackness radiated on through the mountains; it must've been a new moon. I had always felt so powerless under a black sky, in the darkness… but something told me that, for Yin, that wasn't the case.

The only way that I could see him was by squinting through the starlight to his slim, concealed figure leaning against the wall of his house. The wind whistled through his shaggy hair, and he looked up at the sky, counting the visible stars.

My lips quivered. I used to sit in the exact same position, and I remembered the hopelessness burning in my own face as I squinted to see the moon through the trees, crying when it wasn't there…

Yin didn't shed a tear.

He rested his arms on his knees and sighed, looking seventeen through his four-year-old body. _Why is this happening_? That heat was still inside of me, and I clutched my chest, squeezing the fabric on my bloody shirt. _Why do I feel… like I could wrap my arms around this child? _He had nothing to do with me, so why should I care about him? Wasn't his pain_ his_ pain? I had no reason to feel so… so… it was so alien that I couldn't even put a name to it.

He had a _dad_. He should be allowed to be _happy… _I was on my own from the start, inevitably. But he… he had a _chance_. _Why _wasn't his own _father _giving him his chance?

"Akari…" I whispered, looking down at the grass. "Are you… _doing_ something to me…?" There was no way I could feel this on my own. I was the cold one- Chiasa Uzumaki, the one who kept to herself, who shut everyone out… the heartless one.

"Keep watching." As soon as she said it, Yin gasped and looked up, beaming straight through us. Shivers erupted in every part of his body, and he sat there, paralyzed.

"What's-" The door to his house creaked open, and a dark, ominous figure stepped out. He slowly treaded through the grass and over towards the rest of the village with the shadow of his Kunai sticking out. Yin, with sweat pouring down his forehead, started sliding up the wall to a silent stand.

Yoku walked like he was half alive, trudging through the grass with his mind just a few steps ahead of him, already set for the kill.

"Oh… shit…" It was the first time I had ever heard Yin talk… I was cursing at that age, too. I've found that, interestingly enough, one tends to use profanity when life hates them.

His voice was light, but it was smooth and cool at the same time. When I heard it, it made me feel almost… warm, on the inside, but it made me shudder like I was freezing. I would've envied him, if I was some shallow bitch. _My _voice was shaky, soft, and way too high… it was the type of voice that people could mistake for a mouse's.

In that one second, everything inside of Yoku coursed through the air and flew through me, taking my breath away. My blood started boiling, sorrow started flowing up my throat, and I just wanted to find someone and… and just… cry.

_What's… happening to me? _This was insane. I had seen this all before, felt it all a thousand times in a hundred different dreams, but it was completely new to me. It was like that exhilarating rush of adrenaline that you got when you opened a new book, getting thrown into a new world that would take you along with the current of its own story. I was on the edge of my seat, waiting to hear what happened next… but I already knew the answer, and I had read this book in every one of those nightmares.

I just kept forgetting.

_This… murderous… feeling… _why did it have to radiate off of so many people? It flew off of Mizuki and Hibachi… the Blue Man's and the Yellow Eyed Man's strangled me with it. Strangely enough, though… I didn't feel it at all in... in…

I couldn't force myself to think his name.

A whimper made its way out of my teeth, and, like always, I stood there like some pathetic little girl, watching. _That's me… _I thought, chuckling darkly to myself. _Konoha's Guilty Bystander. _

"Fear is what rules our lives." Akari sighed. I stared at her with my own rapidly beating heart, wiping the moisture off of my cheeks. "It comes from our diversity; our Nindo, our bonds, our dreams. It takes us over and eats away at us… until we end up looking like you."

Her face was hard like stone, and there was this intense pain deep inside of the cores of her eyes, begging me- _pleading _with me to just listen, because they needed to be heard.

For whatever reason, this uncomfortable new heat pushed me forward. I nodded slightly, telling her to keep talking, and she looked grateful as she prepared herself.

"I learned that here, from the people around me, and from myself. Yin was horrified that night- he could see right through his father's plan, and he knew he needed to do something about it." A door in the distance closed, and the sound of its slam bounced around the mountaintops.

With a pale face and teary eyes, Yin pushed off of his own feet and sprinted into the center of the town. By the time the scenery dissipated, he was just a dark figure running out of breath, trying to scream something out, his voice shaking as he turned his back to us.

The next room was small and quaint; it was basically empty except for a long, warm little crib and a changing table on the other wall near the door.

The only sound in the room was her soft breathing- even when she was little, it was so perfect. Calm washed over me, and I paced my heartbeat with hers. How could anyone ever want to hurt something like this? Even me… I hated almost everything, yet I still…

How the hell did _this _turn into Akari?

The expression on her face was priceless: she was peacefully sleeping, not having a good dream, not having a bad dream- just… trusting the world to take care of her as she stared into a constant blackness, waiting for the sun to come up.

I had already made that mistake before.

_You're ruining yourself. _If I tried running my fingers across her face, what would happen? Would I go right through her skin, like even in this world, I didn't exist? Or would I be able to feel the electricity run through us again? Would it be stronger, or weaker?

"Akari…" My lips tingled, my throat hurt, and my brain pounded against my skull. Everything that I was about to say, every sound that my lips were about to force themselves around went against every one of my principles and every sense of my being. "You… were so…" As I was building up my own willpower, an unpleasant _creek _slid across the room, and my heart skipped a beat. A sliver of light opened on Yang, slowly and steadily growing bigger and bigger until it filled the room. "Beautiful." Two dark feet skimmed across the floor, taking stealthy steps as they brought their body with them, towards the sleeping child.

It wasn't her parents.

My heart rate sped up as I saw what he was doing; he walked towards her with a smile on his face and a malevolent gleam in his eyes, craving blood like it would ease his pain. His smile lines etched his permanently false happiness- I shivered when I realized what it really meant, behind the expression.

Even in the darkness, he was still hurting.

I didn't trust him when I first saw him, but… did he really deserve this? Did anyone, really? Yang didn't, either… But still, neither of them had anything to do with me.

I watched him as he made his way dramatically over to the crib, not making a sound.

_Taking other's happiness… to feed your own. _And again, I was so helpless. He raised the shiny, silvery kunai in his left hand, and reached down to grab her with his right. _How could you do this? _Pressure blossomed across my face, pressing on my eyes until I had to swallow to shut myself up.

Yoku.

He started laughing- a low giggle that pierced my ears and tried pushing me over. It was that kind of empty relief that left me waiting for someone to hear me, even if I was completely alone and lost and there wasn't a soul that would save me.

They wouldn't if they could.

"What a pretty baby…" He held her up against him by the small of her back, and she looked at him with wide, fearful eyes. I couldn't make it out by standing over here, but something about the flawless, wide balls looked different than Akari's. Were they happier? It probably wasn't hard to do.

Every inch of my body was twisting together and winding itself up, waiting to explode. I couldn't just sit here and watch this… how was Akari so calm? How could she watch herself in the arms of a killer with a straight face? Mine was burning up- my throat gained ten pounds, and I had to swallow to force the hysteria down.

_I don't _care _about this_. It was just so… _so _wrong.

"I have a pretty baby too, you know… he had a very beautiful mother. You killed her, though, did you know that? If you were born first, she'd still be quite alive." He spoke matter-of-factly, like it was no big deal._ Dammit. _"It's okay, though. You'll be with her, in a minute… I'll make sure to let you be with your parents, too."

How could anyone be this awful? What kind of a person would hold a child in his hands, an innocent little child… and be willing to throw its life away? Why did I feel like there was a giant hole in me when I looked at it, like it was me in his arms, and my life in jeopardy? This was insane... _insane_.

"Look at you… the light in your eyes. You're so beautiful, Yang. Don't worry, I can fix that…" The _kur-chunk _of a door flying open and slaming into the opposite wall cut him off, and my ache pulled over to the sound as I whirled around to face it

"Put her down, Yoku." I gasped, feeling the heat of the moment in my veins. Especially when I saw him, that's when I _knew_, from deep inside my heart, that this wasn't just a typical déjà vu.

_Put her down_. A cold voice, sturdy eyes…

A father's love. But how did I know that?

I actually took a step back when I saw his expression- he looked like he could murder someone by looking at them, like Akari could. You could melt under that man's gaze, and waste away if he wanted you to. Something about him just made my heart pound cracks in my ribs.

_Fearful eyes… _they were big, bold, but faded, as though they were older than they should've been; not like Yoku's, no… these weren't pained, aged with days of agonizing nothingness… they were filled with a different kind of pain.

A raw, apprehensive one.

He walked forward, and my mind pulsed. Yoku dropped Yang back in her crib carelessly and went to meet him head on, wearing the same, lost smile on his face. As he rose his hand up, the tip of the kunai shined in the dim lighting it was given, and my intestines twisted together.

I clutched my stomach as the heat rushed up my face, and tried to hold my bile down as I fell to my knees. _Is this going to happen every time I see one? _Sweat poured down my body as I sucked in air, trying to look away.

I was glued.

"Damn it!" I gasped, and one of my hands flew up to my mouth and clamped it shut. How did I want this to end? Did I want Yoku to kill him, an innocent man, right in front of Yang? Or did I want that so-called innocent man to kill Yoku, and be forced to watch him crumble to the floor as the Kunai flung out of his hand?

Would my past ever stop haunting me? Would this place ever stop being so torturous? I wanted to know what happened next. I _needed _to know. But at the same time, as the story went farther and farther along, all I really wanted to do was leave. All this, while that scorching blaze intensified my heart and urged me forward, to step in, to protect them.

All of them.

But what could I do?

_Look up. _Akari's voice whispered in my mind, like it had so long ago, in a different time… one where I had forgotten that this type of thing existed. I'd _love _to have amnesia; just see something and forget it, let it fade away like it never happened…

But everything I saw was like a stain on a shirt; I could pretend that I didn't notice it, but no matter how much I ignored it, it would always be there. Nobody, no matter who they seemed to be, was innocent.

Blood landed on the floor right in front of my spread apart, bony feet, and I yelped and threw myself back. As I flew through the air, I saw it- even _I_ had only seen it once before, and it was so horrible that I never wanted to see it again, but there it was- two shadowy figures were pushed together, one hunched over with blood dripping from his pale lips, and one with cool, stoned eyes and a malevolent smile, licking his lips in blood-thirst.

I descended in slow motion as I watched them, horror-stricken. _Where did it all go wrong? _Tears swelled up in my eyes, turning the whole bloodbath into a colorless blur. My head pounded like my brain was surging into my skull, and I balled my hands into fists. _There was a perfect world… when did it turn into this…? Why? _

Someone was screaming again- at first, I thought it might've been the ghost of Yin's mom, crying out at what she'd let her husband become. My body went rigid as I listened to her, and I gaped at everything locked up inside of it- it sounded like someone was taking an angel into their hands, holding it up, and suffocating it, letting it cry and shriek until it's life ran out and it dropped to the floor, dead.

Loss rang through it, drenching its blood curdling insanity in this tragic, pressing depression that I'd never be able to shake until the day I died. _Who…? _I was barely alive enough to form the thought before I hit the floor and recoiled, arching my spine and coughing until I couldn't breathe. It wasn't Yin's mother- that would be foolish. No… no… it was…

_Me_.

_This… this is… _I couldn't keep my breath steady now. I couldn't even think about it. I didn't want to go back to Konoha anymore- no, I just wanted to _die. _All this time… I thought I knew what it meant to really feel _pain_. What the hell was I doing, moping around all day and feeling sorry for myself? That was _nothing. _

There were no words to describe this.

I hit the floor with a sharp thud, and watched the blood fly out of my mouth, into the air, and away from me. _That's right… you can fly, too. _Even my blood… Even my blood was freer than I was. All the while, I just kept shrieking. I scared _myself_, and I kept going as I stared across the floor at his body, limp and cold and dead.

_Hear me, dammit! _Hear _me! _The inside of my brain burned and I gasped for air, yet I lay trying to comprehend why I didn't need to breathe. Akari stood with her back facing me, as though I was unimportant, a tool… just a toy for her to play with.

And, just like everyone else, she would never, not in a million years, see me.

"_Yang!_" It was like getting overloaded with information, like being a computer, downloading terabytes of files in a matter of seconds. I couldn't hold all of this- I was going to explode. _You're not Akari_, I flailed my legs and thrashed my arms, never taking my eyes off of her. _Akari was trying to be nice to me- Akari was almost my equal. _Could she hear me, even though she was a different person now? _But you… you're Yang. You're not even… human._ On some impulse, I knew it. This was going to kill the little girl wailing in her crib… She'd be just like me in a matter of hours.

_That's what you get for trusting. _Why was the world full of idiotic masochists? As much as I craved an escape, I couldn't sop that burn from rushing through me as Yang stayed, staring at me with those magnificent eyes in my mind.

_I am not going to let you do this to me. _I narrowed my eyes, trying to force my mouth shut. _You can try and imprison anyone else in your stupid game, but I'm not going to play with you... _She couldn't do this. I wouldn't _let _her. I had come too fucking far to lose here… I had died on the inside way too many times to just give up.

But… was giving up the right thing to do now? Somehow, through all of my fresh emotion, I felt more alive than I had in my entire life.

I felt the vibrations on the floor as he landed, his stony face staring open-eyed and shocked into mine. Blood dripped from his lip, onto the floor, and a single, glowing tear dripped from his eye.

_No. _

In a second, my voice was gone. It wasn't because I had somehow come up with the will to stop it- no, that would be too honorable. Instead, my mouth was on fire. I gagged and thrashed around under her as the sensation of every single one of my teeth getting yanked out of their sockets flooded through me, and I couldn't make a sound.

_Wh-what is this? _I tried to focus on the smooth pole that was shoved down my mouth, but when I looked closely enough, I saw it. This was…

Akari's leg.

I could only stare across the room, into those too-familiar golden eyes. They were smiling, once. Now they were pale, frozen in time, and resigned… while a killer stood over their heads.

Oh, how they took me back.

"Sensei!" Just the one word was all it took to shake me. I lay on the floor with Yang's foot still shoved down my throat, and I watched as her old bedroom dissipated from under me. _What's going on…? _There was no way in hell that she was letting me go. She _loved_ listening to me scream. It was like _music_ to her. There had to be some catch, there had to be something… "_SENSEI!" _

And I knew.

Have you ever heard a little girl cry? Did you ever let it get to you? That sound beat down on me my entire life- whenever I heard it, every memory that it lived in pounded back into my head, and it haunted me. If I was asleep, it would sing in my dreams. If I was awake, she'd sit in a corner of my mind and wail. All those memories…

Just like this one.

"_STOP IT! SENSEI, STOP!" _She was breaking down, hugging a tree branch as she watched him, too low for her to reach, but always too high for her to see... He was young, in his late twenties, and good-looking.

_N-No way… _This couldn't be happening. Everything around me had turned to mist again, and it started taking a _new _form, one of an entirely different story.

I didn't want to relive it.

Yang's poker face was unbreakable; I couldn't tell a single thought going through her head, not even by looking at her. For me, not knowing drove me insane. She watched the scene analytically, like it was new to her, and turned her shoulder to the puffy-faced, bruised, blood-shut eyed girl in the tree.

"Don't die…" She whispered, and I could feel her heart ache by looking at her. She, a five year old, a fifteen pound, two-foot eleven, five year old… was dying inside. This was the only person in the world who had ever loved her, slipping away from her right in front of her eyes. Even on his death bed, there was a wide smile across his roundish face, and his shaggy blonde hair swayed in the wind. "Don't… leave me… alone…"

This was _my _memory. Somehow… I had taken control, manipulated the situation… even though I was still throbbing from Yang's foot, and the pain from that mixed in with this weird, other-worldly connection between us, I was the one showing _her_. What was letting me do this, when I had so little Chakra left?

My heart sank as I realized what it was- it struck against my chest, and I started to breathe out in an attempt to calm myself.

His eyes. Yang's Dad's eyes… and Hiroki Sensei's… were exactly, undoubtedly the same.

_Hiroki Sensei… _I knew the position of every blade of grass in the meadow that day. I had counted his final heart beats, and mine… there were fifteen cumulous clouds in the sky. _You left me. _He closed his eyes as his smile broadened, and he reached his hand out to the horrified girl before him.

_Why the hell did you save me? _ He had so much more to live for! He was _respected! _He was _acknowledged! _He was _kind! _What was _I_? I was some stupid, cowardly, insignificant toddler who couldn't do anything besides run. I had no one, nothing, and I'd almost killed myself before this. He was throwing his life away for someone who wouldn't be diplomatic enough to keep it.

God, I should've gone through with it.

_That's right, Hiroki Sensei… _The little girl wailed on, and I watched her from the ground. Was I less than _her_, now? Would I be able to stand just sitting here, doing nothing while I slowly wasted away and grew worse than myself? I didn't really have the choice. _Your arms were always open to me. You must've really cared about me, huh? Look where it got you, Hiroki Sensei. Just look around, turn over in your grave. _Such a diplomat… such a self-inflicting, beautiful diplomat…

_Look at how much I haven't changed. _

"Hiroki… Sensei." She grabbed hold of him, and he stayed with her. At that point, he still could've saved himself. He could've left me there to die, like he should've. No, though… he would always be there for me, no matter what the circumstances.

_You're an idiot, Sensei. _

They all were.

I couldn't take this anymore. I knew exactly what was coming next, and I didn't want to watch it. I ignored the pain in my arms, and I pulled them up to Yang's ankles. Ripping her foot off of me, I squirmed on the floor, fighting to look away.

_No, no, no. _

The little girl's eyes bulged out of her head, and a soundless scream bounced around the forest.

There was no one else to hear it.

She squeezed her eyes and screeched, watching as the laughing, carefree blue man brought his sword around, ready to kill him and double back for her. Hiroki turned around just in time, Kunai ready in hand, but as he did, I… I must've squeezed his hand too tight, because he looked back at me with that classic, too-kind-natured worry in his eyes. I shook my head as hard as I could, but by then, I was too late.

_No, no, no, no, no._

The sword tore through his bones, ripping his flesh to shreds. It was the most horrible thing you could imagine- the only person you loved, starting to gush out blood and lose emotion right in front of your face- and all you could do was sit there, crying. Everything he felt came over on me tenfold as I struggled to grasp him.

The Kunai that had promised to protect me was gone- it flew out of his hand, and shook the tree beneath me. The smile on his face fell, and so did his lower body. The upper weighed me down and almost pulled me to the floor before I gasped, shaking, and… and…

_I let go._

That day, his hand wasn't the only thing I dropped. I had completely forsaken the world, my best friend, and, ultimately, myself. I have to admit, it was just so great watching the light leave their eyes as hers fell to the floor with his body and overshadowed themselves.

It was like being in a cage. Like lying on the cold, hard metal floor, and staring at the ceiling trying to make it move. Every day, I tried getting out of myself… until I didn't exist anymore.

"No… god… what the fuck…" Her stubby little fingers wrapped around the branch as she whispered to herself, and she stared frantically at the floor where her fate waited. Could she live, by some miracle? She looked away, and I cringed automatically at the site of her.

"Aren't you cute?" His voice was softer now, not as hungry… it just watched her like a shark watched a bleeding fish. He took in her scent, watched her sit there helplessly, and waited for the kill. "Don't worry, though… I'm not allowed to kill you. Come on, kid. I'll take you away from this place." My mouth shot open, my eyes flew wide, and I sucked in air like I had never tasted it before.

I had forgotten about that part.

If he hadn't killed Hiroki Sensei right in front of me, would I have trusted him? Would I have walked out of that place, to god knows where? There he was, a blue-skinned, seven-and-a-half-foot tall man with slits on his cheeks… would I have just… left with him?

"Kisame…" This voice was different than the solid, sharky one. This one was even crueler… it made the little hairs on my arms stand up, and it scorched me in all my agony as its curliness and high pitch flowed into one.

_Who the hell _are_ you? _ I rethought it on the grass. When the little girl froze, perked up, and looked around actually fearing for her life, I wouldn't be surprised if her blood was already icy. Even now, looking back at it… I can see his sickly yellow eyes with their black-slit pupils, I can see his chalk white face and his twisted up lips…

Like nothing I had ever seen before.

He didn't want to kill me. He wanted to suck the life out of me and leave me breathing so he could watch me roll around and scream. He'd love it, too. It would sound like music to him, and I'd try not to give him the pleasure.

Just hearing the one, strange word told me that that wasn't going to work.

"Haven't you hurt the girl enough for today?" He wasn't sympathetic; he was sarcastic, twisted… he thought my limp body draped over a tree was funny. "Look, she's crying." For the first time in my entire life, I actually looked straight into my own eyes. I was too scared to really hear him at the time, and I didn't realize it, but… he was right. Little silvery tears were sliding out the base of my eyelids, and my eyes were dead. I wouldn't have been able to hurt the girl either, just out of pure pity.

_Geez, you weakling. Get yourself together. _I shook my head, gritting my teeth. She never would.

I could never hold onto myself.

For just half of a second- I couldn't completely tell, but I was pretty sure- I thought I saw something. I have no idea why it sent tremors throughout my body, or why I felt this wintry sensation spread throughout my chest when I noticed, but… there, in my own face, shone two golden eyes, as radiant as the sun.

My own horrified expression started to morph into someone else's; someone's far more beautiful, even as she was being brutally, internally murdered. The Yellow Eyed Man's laugh was drowned out by a louder, more obnoxious one… this one was insane, this one was like the Blue Man's… but it didn't have the power.

Again, pulling me back to what was almost reality was… Yoku.

"Stay… away… from Yang…" Her voice sounded like a thousand glass birds shattering, getting thrown against the floor one by one, until there were no pieces left to fly anymore. Somehow, by some sixth sense, I knew exactly who she was.

Even though I had never had one, I knew that only a mother could hunch over a baby like that. There was sweat all over her petite, fragile body, but her arms still made sure that Yang never touched the ground.

Did my mom do that for me? It brought tears to my eyes, and it was killing me. Would my mom die for me like that? Or didn't she care enough? For all I knew… this could've been what actually happened.

Then- _right then_- just as I thought the words, Akari's face stiffened, and she let it go in a second. Before I could even narrow my eyes at her, though…

It all happened just a little too fast.

First, she started thrashing. As soon as he put a hand on her, she let Yang fall on the floor, safe for the next few minutes, at least. Her eyes tried to avoid the body on the ground, but she couldn't look at Yoku's, either. She stared down at his shirt, barely trying to fight him.

He had her by the throat.

"Shh…" He cooed, "it's okay, Kitai… you don't have to scream anymore." That disgusting smile spread across his face, and I, just like all those years ago, looked a self-sacrificing dumbass in the eyes. At that point, struggling was purposeless. What could I do? I was just a useless, undersized little girl. For god's sake, I was just under a _demon's foot_. These things just didn't happen every day. Sure, I could try and scream and cry… but it would end up like everything _else _I did.

Useless.

This was fear in its truest form. This was the very beginning of the emotion. Was the reason for it as understandable as I thought it was, though? Did he deserve the corpses he was dying to create?

No, that wasn't the answer. Then what was it about him? Was I really so intuitive that I hated that innocent man, with different eyes from a different time? Did I know he was going to turn into this? This was the beginning of the curse that would rule my entire life. I'd probably get grey hair before I turned thirteen, but was that it? Was I really going through all of this, just to learn about fear?

No. The way she hunched over… the way she defenselessly conceded into Yoku's arms… it didn't happen with these people, but I had seen this scenario before.

More tears came, and the warmth flushed through me to remind me that it hadn't left. I was shaking, frozen and trapped in myself… I couldn't move, because it was futile. I couldn't look away, because I was too glued. I couldn't do anything besides lye there, scared and scarred out of my mind, watching him trace the outline of her lips with the tip of the kunai knife.

Yang didn't even make a sound as her mother's heart took off and echoed around the room. She cowered on the floor as though she couldn't hear it, and- for just a second, I might've been imagining it- her golden eyes darted to my face.

I kind of just lay there in shock. What could I do besides melt away under her stare? Nothing, really.

_This isn't even… what the fuck… _before I could really start to feel the impact, though, a bang killed my train of thought and her curiosity shifted to the other side of the room, where an ear-shattering _bang_ had sounded.

It was a miracle she still had curiosity in the first place.

"You're going to die." He laughed in her face as the Kunai made its way up to her eyebrows. Hadn't he heard it? It could've shattered my ear drums. Plus, there was this sudden chill in the room… I got Goosebumps. Did he honestly think he was cool enough to do that just by being scary? "Then you'll really look like your mother… won't you?" Why was I breathing so quickly? Every extra second I stayed there, my stomach just swelled up more, pressing on my bones and bloating my skin. Believe me, if there was any way out of that, I would've found it. I was literally lying there, boiling. I had never seen this before… but it was still my life story, and I knew it. Can you imagine how _frustrating _that is? If you add that to the legitimate _blood _that wasbubbling in the back of my throat, you can start to imagine my position here.

Yoku started chuckling as he went on, not even bothering to keep his voice down. "I can still see the light leaving her eyes. You remember it, don't you? You were there when he killed her. Oh, my father…" I coughed, and blood splattered all over Akari's leg.

_What the fuck? _This… this wasn't even… there was murder _before _this. I started scrambling again, breathing so quickly that it made me dizzy. This man's… _father… _Why? What could her mother possibly have done to…

Suddenly, for some reason, I knew.

I can promise it, I could feel my eyes go black. I either died, or finally managed to surprise the vigor out of myself. Either way was fine. I could still see her, out in front of me… making me cry for whatever reason, so beautiful… so untouchable…

_Oh. _

He ran the Kunai through her hair, and leaned in close to her face. There was almost no space between them as he whispered to her, smiling with a blazingly bright set of teeth.

He was Hibachi's ancestor, I swear…

"What a nice recreation." Now he spoke with that thick, dazed, humored voice that usually reeked of alcohol. "All you need is her bloody red hair… you'd be the spitting image."

Yang's mom's face was contorted and scrunched up, but something was out of place. Her teeth weren't totally clenched together; there was the slightest gap in between the top and the bottom, telling me what, if Yoku was clever enough to read these things, would've told him something very, very important.

She wasn't scared anymore.

"Yoku!" In the open doorway, a tall silhouette stood with a smaller one by his side. His voice was scratchy and deep with age, but there was a fire in his beautiful, light blue eyes.

"Aka Uzumaki's death was the first public execution in the history of the human race." Akari's voice was robotic as she watched the scene in front of her; expressionless. _And the first murder_. I knew what I _should've _been thinking: Kitai's mother was killed right in front of her, and everyone she knew got to watch. How horrible was that, handing your life over to those same eyes? Especially when the idea of murder had never even been a thought before. She looked right into them with so much fight… I should've been dumb stricken by it. Truthfully, though, I was really only thinking about one thing.

_Uzumaki_.

This didn't tell me anything. Was I being naïve? Just because she's a distant relative… That meant that I was in Yang's bloodline. So what?

Yoku's smile faltered, and, though I was probably the only one who heard it, he was _scared_ _shitless. _His heart was so steady before, but now… Who the hell _was _the man at the door?

"Put her down, before I kill you." What was this? It was driving me insane. My whole body was stiff and erect, but at the same time… I felt safe.

Did Naruto and I get our blonde hair from the same place that she did, then? Were all of them… were the Uzumaki all this beautiful? She didn't even look at me- her finger twitched, and my teeth clamped together so hard that that metallic, liquid taste shot through my mouth and trickled back down into my throat. I couldn't make a sound- the only thing I could do, in all of my torturous confusion and pain, was watch.

For once in my life, I knew that no one was going to kill me. Of course, the only way for me to actually die when I wanted to was to get this god-forsaken overwhelming feeling to suck the life out of me.

I could only be so lucky.

"Speaking of fathers…" Yoku looked back and forth between the man and the child, trying to hide the pain in his eyes. He chuckled, despite everything going on inside of him. "The two of us are miscreants. Do you know that?" As he dropped Kitai, he turned to face them fully.

_God, don't hurt them. Please, just die so you can end this… _I really didn't know how much more I could take- half of my vision was completely white, and the only thing I could hear was Kitai, curled up into a ball on the floor and gasping for air.

What a coward.

It was all just an act then? Her stoic face… was really a fake? Now, throughout all of that, she couldn't even comfort her own daughter. It was the most pitiful thing I had ever seen, and if I could've, I would've looked away.

I could see where I got it from.

"Yang," a light voice breathed, forced and pained and too young to be seeing this. Oh, how I wished it wasn't so recognizable. Yin ran over, past his father, tripping over his own feet as he went. He almost grazed Yoku's side, but neither of them even thought about acknowledging each other at first. Yin just slid across the floor and landed at next to the squirming child, scooping her up in his arms and hugging her like she was his own sister.

My stomach heaved, and if you could see my face in the lighting, I swear it'd be green. I'd never really liked stuff like this- if this turned into a love story, Akari was going to end up with vomit all over the sole of her foot. _Too cute, _I thought to myself, trying to breathe and kill off the feeling. Yang's wide, beautiful eyes poured into his, and at that moment, all they fucking did was stare at each other. _Way, _way_ too cute. _

I'd rather it go back to the gory murder scene.

I'm not kidding.

"Yoku, you're not a bad person." He was treading on thin ice, that man… What the hell was he saying? Was he blind? Did he _see _what the man had done, even a little bit? If there was any blood left in my body, the rest of it paraded up to my face. "You know you're not. Look around you. Take a deep breath, and then tell me; is this really what you want?" Yoku raised his eyebrows and pulled them together, letting the man's words in.

"Dad…" Kitai murmured. There was something about the man… It was obvious that he had married the little red-haired girl, Aka... that woman was Kitai's mother. I swore I had seen him before, though… it wasn't very long ago, either.

Ah…! That was the feeling… _recognition_.

I was really, honestly glad that I couldn't read his mind when he gave in and took in what he had done for the first time. His eyes were just a pair of giant circles as they darted around the room, pausing for a moment on everything- the dead man, Kitai, shivering and sweating on the floor, Yin and Yang- and finally, finally understanding.

He lowered his kunai, but the look in his eyes burned without faltering.

When a person loses themself to that extent, is it even worth it to try finding them? He couldn't look at the blue eyed man anymore- no, now he turned toward his _own _legacy, looking at him like the trash he had always thought he was.

They say that when you're really connected with someone, you can read their heart. Even if you hate them with everything you have, once that connection is there… the two of you are one, like fate. It's not something controllable- it's just that annoying little word that hangs over our heads until the day we die. It's set in stone, it's not fair, and it's permanent.

"_Yoku!_" Kitai's father roared. Recognizing him was heart warming- yes, this was the little boy, I could see it in his face now. He must've been a real friend, to love her after all of that… that little, smiling boy she had played tag with.

I suppose Yin was the first to know what his dad was planning on doing- I could tell it by looking at him, but no one else could see it. And, as Yoku raised his kunai once more, his child gaped. His mouth fell open, and his eyes screamed the thoughts I had cursed myself with a thousand times.

_How could you leave me alone like this?_

What kind of a father was that? He really tore at my newly found compassion- it hurt just _looking _at him. I had always thought that a dad would be stronger than this. They were supposed to be warm and protective, right? A dad was supposed to love their child unconditionally.

Or was I just fooling myself?

"No," Yin whispered, and he watched the kunai plummet through his father's chest. A single tear tumbled down Akari's face, and again, the world went white.

There was that feeling again.

My soul was shaking, my lips were dry, and I was nothing. I felt like my weight was re-distributing itself, and the world was doing laps above my nose. _What the fuck… _Every inch of my skin prickled, even though not a single thing had touched it. I could feel Akari's drafty aura hanging over me, and I knew that she had let me go.

I was my own person, until I pissed her off again.

My exhales came out in grunts as I tried setting my head straight, and I slowly pushed up to my feet. I had been thinking it all day, but…

If I wanted to live, I had to get the hell out of here.

My body burned as I caught myself at least five times, and I turned to face her. I knew I didn't stand a chance; I was drunk on pain, and she could kill me if I was sober. That look in her eye, though… She liked this. This was making her stronger….

And I couldn't have that.

I threw all thirty-five pounds of myself at her with an exasperated shout. I probably sounded like an idiot, but at this point, who really cared? If I was a Sensei back at the Academy, I would've been all over myself with corrections. I had no stance at all- she could've knocked me out from right under my own feet with one finger if she wanted to. Every time I brought my fist down on her head, I ended up hunching over and almost doing a summersault.

"You… _bitch_!" I screamed at her, shaking my head. How much would I lose if I closed my eyes? A finger? Two? "What… do you think… you're _doing_?! _What_?!" I couldn't run, I couldn't fight, I could hardly speak, and I couldn't shut up. What the _hell _did she want me to do? How did she _get here_? Was this as random as I thought it was?

"Chiasa," she spoke condescendingly, and my throat tightened when her smooth little voice whispered from behind my shoulder. "You need to calm down." If she was serious, I would've killed her.

"To _hell _with that!" I had completely disregarded any idea of a strategy. The fact that I wasn't ignored then was enough- I started flailing my arms in nonstop circles, and charged at her. "Do you _realize _how _confusing _you are?!" It was like we were fucking dancing. This was just a game to her, wasn't it? She just stepped around my fists as my heart raced, and I tried not to think about how scared I was when I actually tried to hit her. "You're standing here, showing me all of these _irrelevant things _that have absolutely nothing to do with me, and at the same time, they're my fucking _life story! _Who do you think you _are- _no, who _are _you?!" With every step I took, I tried shoving my foot into her stomach. "I've never seen anything like _any _of this! Why am I so _nostalgic_?!" I had never been in love; I wasn't even sure that I had ever loved a person as a friend. I had never killed a person, and I'd wished that I'd never seen anyone die. What was the point of any of this? Getting my past thrown back in my face?!

"_Chiasa._" I stopped in mid-air, freezing in my awkward position and letting my heart throb in her glower. The last time I can remember moving after that was when my mouth shot open and my muscles tensed up.

My blood was a fiery, endless stream of molten-hot magma. It crawled up to my head and through my brain and destroyed everything in its path, because it hated me. Everything did. I couldn't even _think _about trying to hold back my scream. I just let it split my eardrums and pop every vein in my body, because I was just that helpless here.

This wasn't a Jutsu. This… was just a magic trick.

"Stop! Stop! _Please! _I-I'm sorry, I….!" I wheezed, trying to cry to cool myself down. She walked over slowly and dramatically, placing a hand on my stomach as she leaned in close to my face, brows furrowed in hatred.

"Chiasa, I think you need to remember who's got the power here." _Don't give in to her. Remember… remember Hibachi. You didn't give in there, and that's how you got free. _I swallowed, remembering where that "freedom" ended up taking me after the fact."You're afraid of a lot of things, aren't you?" I coughed in her face, watching the blood spill out of my mouth with a shitload of _satisfaction. _I was afraid of _everything_, but if I was going to die, I had nothing to lose. "You're a smart girl, and clearly, you've got some instincts. I'll give you a little survival tip from here on out, okay?" As the watery red drops dripped off of her rock-smooth forehead, she acted like I was the only thing in the world and stared at me like I was her annoying little sister.

"Listen to them." And I fell.

When I came to, my body was aching and complaining all over. I couldn't move my arms, I couldn't _feel _my legs, and the only thing that was definite was the rough carpet sleeping beneath my skin.

_Maybe this is a different place. _I thought, feeling the hope surge in my chest. _Maybe there's a _nicer _demon to tell me a _happy _story here. _My eyes flitted open, but I had to squint against the blinding ceiling light before the world set in.

I was in a quaint house,- it looked like there were about three rooms in total- and it had warm wooden walls caressed with age and a nice, homey feeling. I took a deep breath, calming myself down, and spread myself out on the floor.

For some reason, I had always loved cute little houses like this. I was so blinded by my own contentment that I had forgotten to even consider the most important factor of what I was doing; _who lives here? _I tried pushing down on my palms, but my arms wouldn't have it.

"Ow!" I tried craning my neck to see the rest of my body. _What the hell…? _I swallowed with wide eyes and let my head fall back on the floor. _I really shitfaced myself, didn't I? _Most of my visible skin was blue, and everything else beside that was a bloody scrape. I groaned, squinting my eyes through the jolt of pain coming at me. If I hadn't looked, would I have even noticed it was there?

Only one person could be responsible for this. I sighed, and prepared myself to officially end my little minute of bliss.

"Akari," I moaned, trying to feel her in the room. "I know you're in here." The sooner we got this over with, the better. As I waited for her peaceful, earthy voice to start talking again, I tried ignoring the pounding in my head. Finally, though, I could see her foot beside my face in my peripheral vision.

"Time passed again, and Yin and Yang hadn't said a word to one another." Being near her still sent chills down my spine, but hearing her voice smoothed my pain over. _Leave it to me to get dependent on a sadistic demon's _voice. I sighed.

"Their lives were boring and lonely, and, even though neither of them realized it at the time, they both stole glances at each other when the other wasn't looking." My view changed again- she was going to make me stand up- and I was staring past a little blonde girl's shoulder, out a cute little window towards the center of town.

I stumbled at first, shaking, and with every step I took to catch myself, a shock rebounded through my body.

_I'm going to be stuck here for the rest of my life. _I would rather stare at a wall for an eternity than stay here. Not only that, but… why was I so homesick?

Also… that overwhelming heat from before… was gone. I felt as cold as the look in the young Yang's eyes.

"Kitai was practically inhuman, and Yang had to raise herself. She made dinner, cleaned, made it a point to be educated, and took care of her mother while she could..." As she spoke, the girl at the window grew taller. Slowly, she traveled from the tiny structure of a little girl to a petite and delicate frame, all curvy and fragile. When she was a little over my height, she stopped.

"She spent most of her time out by this window, though, watching the little boy that cried when he didn't think anyone was looking grow up into a man." God, that sounded corny. _Am I blushing? _I felt my cheek, and, to my surprise… ice. "A decade later, she started feeling close to him." From a side-view, I could see her big, non-blinking, beautiful golden eyes scrutinizing him. _This is an obsession… is that a bad thing? _

It was definitely a bad thing.

"Why did you care?" Something kept coming to my mind… I had a feeling that I knew what it was, but… my wellbeing forced it out, didn't want to let it in just yet.

"Something about him just drew me in. I couldn't explain it to you if I tried, but… eventually, explanations didn't matter anymore." _Why don't I feel..._ mushy? _What am I doing? What_ did she _expect _me to do? I honestly didn't feel… any sympathy, and I was practically watching _myself _grow up. Beaten down, spiritless, alone. So why didn't I feel better- no, why should I? Maybe I was back to normal.

I sighed again, folding my arms across my chest. I'd love to say that I'd choose frustration over death, but sometimes, I really wasn't sure.

"While Yang watched Yin, Kitai was constantly in her bedroom." The scene morphed from under my feet, and the room changed. As the walls began to reform and retract, someone's deep, steady breathing filled the air. Usually, something like that would've been calming to listen to, but… this was broken somehow. Something about it was just too pressing… too impossibly hopeless.

Her figure formed on a wide, heavily decorated bed that took up most of the room. She was awkwardly draped across it, but she let her head and feet hang limply off the sides, like a dead body.

"She wasted away year after year here, until finally…" With her head hanging down like that, I expected it to turn red with all the blood that must've been filling it. As Yang kept talking, though, she only got paler.

_What the hell am I looking at? _I blinked, trying to make sense of this. No matter what, I couldn't stop thinking about that bright, happy look in her eyes when she held her daughter for the first time, and a sweat broke out across my forehead. _Is this… _my heart started pounding against my ears, pumping blood into my cheeks, and I had absolutely no idea what was happening to me. _Is this really the same woman? _She just had so much _gusto_ and _life_. Where did all that go? Was this really what loving a person could do to someone…?

What the hell would_ I _end up like if anything happened to Naruto? Why couldn't I feel, now, after such an emotional outbreak inside of me, like I _cared_?

My hand flew to my mouth and slammed into my lips at the thought, trying to make my actions provoke my feelings. I watched her kill herself with a bitter, mock-horror. _No… no. It's not… It can't… _ I knew all too well that this could happen to a person. It was just… _life_.

Her long, beautiful blonde hair was ratty and white, laying on the floor lazily. There were _creases _in her face, _wrinkles _all over her body… how old was she? Thirty-something? I didn't even think this was possible. She had wide, deep grey eyes that stared mindlessly into the wall, like there was something more interesting there, something to put her to shame.

"Mom," a strong voice broke the silence, and I turned over to it with a jump. A small-framed, shadowy figure stood at the doorway, and the only thing I could see was the glint in her eyes. "You've never really been a mother to me… but I understand." The fire that was there at first was drained out, and now she just sounded dejected. There was one slip- that was all, but it was there- where my heart stopped. I added everything up, seeing what she was clearly saying, the words behind her words.

_No… that's not possible. She couldn't be… _

I wished I could turn around to look at Kitai again, to see if she was really gone- but I had to see Yang, much older, much more evolved, step into the light.

"You even died with that same, blank expression on your face."

No! I had _heard _her breathing- she had to have been alive! I spun around frantically, trying to really see her- could she have died while I was looking away? _How? _

But the only thing I could see was this picture-perfect sixteen-year-old girl with her thick, heavy eyelashes and her heart-shaped face. Her hands were calm, fragile but sturdy, and resentful as she reached them out.

Could a person just… die like that? No body killed her. No one was even in the room… so how did she just… collapse? Were people really that weak? No… it was just her. Was _I _going to be this weak, when I got hurt like this? Was I already? How could love be a good thing, if this was what it did to a person?

"It isn't." It seemed like one of those moments when the wind would blow by, and I'd gasp and widen my eyes and stare at her like she'd just cursed out God. My hair would fly over my face, and I'd really, _really _question myself. Maybe I'd even make a new nindo for myself; it was impossible to say… but I'd already figured as much, and I'd already given up on Akari clarifying anything.

"Yeah," I nodded, not even turning to look at her.

Yang placed a hand on her mother's soundless heart and one over her eyes as she sighed, sliding them shut. Did she feel anything? I couldn't watch them- corpses were never really my thing, but this… this was her _mother_. She was _dead_. How could anyone… Didn't she… feel _anything_?

"You're crying," Akari's gaze shot a hole through my face as she spoke matter-of-factly. She wasn't saying it to be nice or comforting… She was just letting me know, because she knew I had no idea.

She wouldn't let me ignore it.

_Of course I'm crying. _There was a huge, pounding hole in my chest, born from that same lack of emotions. It had always fucking been there, and now the edges around it were burning through my skin and torturing me. I couldn't even watch them, because the only thing I could picture when I looked at her was me.

Sometimes, I thought there was no way to really be emotionless. The reason people had feelings in the first place were because we needed them to survive- without happiness, laughter… what became of a person? Without those, or even negative emotions, all that was really left was…

Pain.

"This was the day my mother died… and the day I finally started living." I clenched my fists- it was so _sick_. Yet she stood there, both the present and the past versions, stoic as a statue, forever neutral and uncaring.

As soon as a tear fell from my eye, it all went downhill.

I sucked in, staring open-mouthed into space, and my hands flew to my gut. There was a huge fist lodged inside of me, I swear- I couldn't stop coughing, and it seemed like the more I tried to think about the scene going on in front of me, the worse it got.

_What's happening to me? _It was excruciating and breathtaking- I couldn't stand it. The next thing I knew, I was dropping to my knees, staring wide-eyed at the floor.

_Her Chakra was giving him light for his book- it was three in the morning, the day of her graduation. He knew she'd never make it in time if she died in this…_

_Just as he was wondering when it was going to start, her body jolted. Not even bothering to look up, he turned the page. After all, there was nothing he could do about it- all he was capable of was sitting there, enveloped in her Chakra, waiting. He was a strong Ninja- if it were someone else, they might've been dead already._

_Chiasa screamed, and it barely sent a chill down his spine._

CHIASA

The wood under my hands turned to a grassy forest floor in an instant, and strangely enough, all of my pain was automatically gone. I was on all fours, but I still knew that there were three people around me- I could _feel _them.

_Stay rational, Chiasa_. That was the most important thing; in battle, it was physically impossible for me to calm myself down. The only thing I'd ever done in a fight is freeze up- the one with Sasuke was the first I had ever won.

So, keeping my breathing steady, I picked my head up and looked around me.

It was actually a familiar setting- it was kind of like yesterday, with me laying back breathlessly on a tree, unknowingly waiting for Sasuke to come attack me, but this was much more like a fairy tale.

Here was this beautiful girl with anguished eyes, standing dramatically in the middle of a forest. No one was _perfect _like this- I couldn't _believe_ that she was better at being _helpless_ than me, but I couldn't stop staring at her. There was this awful aching feeling in the pit of my chest, and I wanted to go help her… but I was never really good at feeling sorry for people. Half of me expected her to get swept off of her feet by some airheaded, girly-boy, unrealistic price charming, and half of me was a quarter right.

With every breath she took, she idly traced the thick bark of the tree behind her with her fingertip. Barely shaken at all, I could tell she was using the same strategy as me; _stay rational. Just breathe. _Her finger was leaving narrow, bright trails of white along the trunk, and my heart skipped a beat.

"I know you're here…" Her voice was calm and firm, as though she was untouchable. If you just saw her from the outside, looked at her body, then never thought about her again, you'd think you could break her in a second. But she was right- I could feel someone else around, just like I had the night before, and, _unlike_ me, she didn't seem to be scared at all. He gave off this eerie, encroaching feeling… it gave me that impression of shooting out of bed in the middle of the night after a nightmare, then getting even more horrified because I was waking up into complete and total darkness.

That nightmare that you just couldn't seem to escape- was it only me?

But Yang… Yang looked into it like she could see through it. Her bright eyes must've been like flashlights, I couldn't imagine that she'd be very stealthy. My heart started going, and I took a step back, ready to scream again as soon as the pain overwhelmed me, but at first… it never came.

"How long could you feel me?" I jumped, let out a involuntary shriek, and spun around. _No way… _was _that _stealth… even possible? I could _swear _I had felt him in the trees across from us. How did he get behind her?

That wasn't even it- his _voice_… it was deep and rich and it made the hairs on the backs of my neck stand up just from hearing it. I knew I would regret looking, but I just gawked at the two of them. As Yin stepped out, I couldn't even move. When I saw Akari, I thought she was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen… but this, this was beauty and a whole new level.

_Grow up into a man, huh? _No kidding.

Yin was tall, maybe about five foot ten, and his dark complexion made Yang shine. It was hard to even get passed _him_ though, what with his swift, steady movements and his heavily-built, tightly muscular chest…

Alright, _now _I was blushing.

"Ever since the beginning." She knew… this whole time, she had known why she watched him, why she was so pointlessly interested in everything he did. The two actually complemented each other well, but I didn't like looking at things like this. It was just so… _gooey… _

I knew this was going to turn into a love story.

The nausea came parading up my stomach, and I actually had to cup my hand to my mouth to keep from throwing up.

"So you know… how different you are?" My heart throbbed through the intensity between them from all the way over here- _this is idiotic. _It really was, so why was it affecting me like this? This, of all things… And, do you know what? Yin's deep, beet black eyes were reminding me of that same person who I was trying (for whatever reason) so desperately to force out.

I shivered.

"Yin," her voice curled around his name, like she was saying a word in a different language- too new. "I'm a freak. I go outside, and people stare at me until I go back in. I can… see _farther _than them. I feel things that there aren't even _words _for. Obviously, I'm-" She stopped, and realized his knowing eyes. I gagged again, hating that feeling… like the two of us had something in common. _Ugh_.

The alien stares were popping into my head now, too.

I was a lot of horrible things, but a monster wasn't one of them. At least, I didn't think so.

"Yeah, obviously." Yin nodded and slowly raised his hands out in front of him, furrowing his brow. I recognized his expression immediately- he probably didn't realize it, but he was concentrating his Chakra to an astounding extent. I instantaneously felt that rush fly through me as though I was standing in his shoes, focusing my own breathing, pinpointing exactly what I wanted to happen, seeing exactly where I'd do it…

Yang's pride was blown away as this shapeless, translucent black fire dedicated itself to match the outlines of his palms exactly; the grin on his face was priceless. _I know that feeling_. The hairs on my arms stood up, and I leaned in, gasping his presence through me.

That was that tingly feeling that started in the pit of your stomach when you stood up in front of a whole cluster of people, stammering. Humans felt it all the time; I was sure of it. With Shinobi, though, once it gathers, it splits open and soars throughout our bodies like an icy cold shot of lightweight blood.

Exhilarating.

"Watch this." I hid under a rock when I felt that feeling. It scared me half to death; I couldn't stand it. Oh God, I would've given my soul to be a human- no one would expect anything of me. No one would hate me for whatever was inside of me, and I could finally, _finally _be something close to happy.

No, though, some "asshole in the sky" threw me in some bullshit story with some psychopathic, sadistic super model to _rot_, because I deserved it. The inside of my throat throbbed, and I clutched at the inside of my chest as his fire-filled, too-familiar eyes set on the rough bark patterns of a young, fruitful little oak tree.

It's branches started turning grey.

_No. _I glanced at Akari. _Is she really okay with this? _How could she watch this happen? How could she… how could she let him show her his awful power if it killed something so innocent and non-judgmental? That tree never did anything to anybody! She lived in that… that _incredible _place… and she could just watch it die?

"W-what…?" My voice cracked as it melted under his forceful aura. Trees were my whole life; they were the _only _ones that accepted me. As if some growth was harvesting on it, a thick, pitch black fungus started crawling it's way up the trunk.

I could hear its roots screaming.

"Please… _please_…" Akari couldn't hear me- she was too busy watching Yang stare at him in disbelief, trying to catch his gaze with this soft passion in her eyes.

To me then, love was a blindfold. It was no big deal if the one wearing it wasn't important, because nothing would get them if they couldn't see. I, though… I thought that darkness would be the death of me.

Sluggishly, the leaves and fungus disintegrated into layers of tiny grey ashes and floated down to its roots. I felt something pressing on me, trying to make its way into my head, but I couldn't let it in. My heart showed exactly what it was trying to display, however, and before I knew it, I was off my feet, flying to the floor with the remnants of the oak tree.

"Can I… do that?" I hit the floor with a crash, and the world's edges flooded red. Why was I even fighting to sit up? To see Yang, staring at her hands with this petty, child-like excitement? After everything she's gone through, how the hell could she be so little like that? Yin took his big, dark hands and wrapped them around her wrists, holding her hands to his chest.

_You two are a couple of sick bastards. _I clutched my stomach and fell back on the grass, trying to hold yesterday's lunch down. Acid crawled up my throat, and I let a few drops of it spew out when another huge, potent blow pounded on my stomach. My breath flew out of my chest in a wheeze, and I staggered forward as the wind pushed me back on my feet to face Yin and Yang again.

"No… but you can undo it." His whisper made my heart punch blood at my face, and I wanted to hide myself under my palm. _This is so… _There weren't really any words to describe this. This was what? The _first conversation _they had ever had? And they were making goggling eyes at each other. My stomach lurched forward, and I had to pray that Akari didn't see me gag.

Without taking his eyes off of hers, Yin swung himself around her so quickly that I could barely even see it. She stood as the midpoint of his two outstretched arms, and he rested his chin on her shoulder as her back pressed firmly into his chest. With an open mouth, she stared forward in shock.

_I can't even look at this… but I have to. _Just… absolute… Fuck.

Trying to hold my food down, I watched as he pressed his lips right up against her ear lobe and breathe so his voice blended into the wind.

"Concentrate all of your energy… on those ashes." He angled her hands so that they were exactly as he had had them, and the ashes automatically twitched.

_No way… _there was _no way _that was possible. Nobody in the entire world had that power. Could they do that to a _person_? Not even one of the Hokage… could bring the dead back to life. Especially not without even _touching_ them.

My Chakra formed on the surface of Yang's palms, and it glowed much more brightly in the middle of the day than mine ever could at night. _Is it because Yin's helping her? _It might've been my imagination, but a shiny black rim looked like it was glowing on her arm.

It was almost as though their Chakra was working against one another. Like being against a village, pushing away from it, and avoiding it with everything you had, but it was different; here, the teams were even. They weren't separated by person to village; monster to human. They were just… equal.

A vacant feeling crawled up my throat, and I had to swallow to keep myself focused. When she flashed him with her beautiful, blinding smile, though, I couldn't keep my vision from blurring and stifling a gasp at the two of them.

_Maybe… _The solitude in their eyes was still burning brighter than it ever had, mirroring me exactly, but there was some different light about them. Was this how they could be so freaking close? It made perfect sense, honestly, now that I thought about it. Taking on solitude is like getting permanent leeches stuck to your body- you just get drained until you're nothing.

Until you turn into me.

Now, though, they had someone to share it with. They must've been each other's super heroes, like Naruto was to me. They were still disgusting, ratchet idiots, but even still… I could understand where they were coming from. After all, how hard can half a leech really bite?

Gradually, the tree started to reconstruct itself. I felt like, as the dust piled on top of each other more and more, I was losing even more weight, letting my density just drop, because my volume stayed the same. _I could fly, if I really wanted to. _I couldn't feel my legs as I stumbled over my own sandals, conceding to the muscles of my cheeks as they forced a smile on me. Everything in the pit of my stomach that was even close to twisted unspun itself and latched on to the open air, pulling me up into the sky…

That skull-crushing, burning prickle shot through me before I could even think to wake up. In a sharp gasp, my eyes shot open, only to slam shut again when this agonizing, all-consuming rush of _red _clouded my vision and forced a struggling breath out of my throat.

"Ow!" I staggered back. _What the hell… _I tried squinting and feeling the center of my forehead to see if this was what I thought it was. Sure enough, when I wiped off my eyes with my wrists, there it was. Now it was all over my forearm, but because I so carelessly dozed off again and went into another daydream, I managed to slam my face into a reanimated tree. How typical, right?

Wrong. It wasn't me zoning out, I realized, but… _What… _How did she…? Slowly, still pressing on the gash in my skull to stop the bleeding, I turned to look at her. There she was, gawking at her own power, looking back and forth from the tree to her hands. _No one should have power like that… _Even from just a little bit of her Chakra being exposed to my senses, it was like an auto-Genjutsu. I still wobbled around trying to regain my balance; why couldn't _I _do that to someone? That must've been it… after all, there was no other real explanation.

I clenched my fists.

This wasn't _fair_. Why should she get to be beautiful? Why should she know who she was, and get to torture me? Why should she just be _blessed _with this unheard of power, having the power to beat everyone without even knowing she could fight?

The world didn't work like that… but I'd just have to find a different way to get there.

The two of them looked at each other again, and a million thoughts passed through them. They were like invisible string, each separate topic tying them together and together again. Yang furrowed her brow, her light eyes fogged with questions and confusion. For every thought she sent out to him, there were a thousand more in her head, waiting. Finally, the only thought she managed to get out of her throat was a simple, breathless, three letter word.

"How?" Yin was still idly holding onto her hands, smiling into her eyes with this cool, definite passion. The proximity between the two of them was nauseating, and I tried rolling my eyes away from them.

My bad.

"How did you know?" This was like a bad soap opera. Who threw this together? The writer of some flashy, overexposed pornography? We hadn't reached _Make-out Paradise _level yet, folks, but oh God was it getting there.

Yin froze at her question, stumped on what he should say. All of his pretty-boy confidence from earlier was gone- now he was concealing himself, nervous, trying to hide the pulsing of his heart under his skin… Yang wasn't an idiot, so she obviously saw too, and her eyes pressed forward still.

"I…" Yin wasn't the wise mentor anymore- he wasn't even the girly-boy boyfriend. Now, he was a little kid. His guiltily innocent eyes bulged around his face, and he struggled to force his focus away. At first, I wondered if Yang thought he was stalking her. Then, I shivered at the fact that she probably didn't care. "It's all my fault." He spun around and looked away from her, actually starting to rush back towards the trees. What was he? P.M.S.-ing? He wiped the sweat from his forehead with his wrist as he went to leave, but Yang, disgruntled as she was, wouldn't just give me a break.

Then, to put the cherry on the fucking top, Yin mumbled: "I shouldn't have come here… I… I thought… I'm sorry…"

"Stop!" Her eyebrows were pulled together, and her feet dug into the ground. She was a little breathless as she tugged him back, trying to yank on him with all of her strength. "What the hell are you _talking _about?!" The two of them stopped, shadowy with the overhang of the trees by the sun. He just looked so… _constipated. _The crinkles between his eyes screamed just how much he wanted to force this thing out, but he bit his lips back, and he couldn't say anything.

"We stood there for what might have been hours…" Akari murmured, watching the two of them stand stiffly with Yang's hand on his. Something was off about her that I couldn't quite put my finger on… She was just different somehow. Maybe her eyes seemed lighter, less deadly and calmer, or she was just… wistful. "There was the weirdest thing was going on between our hands, like this electric bond that just… kept us together. It was… _amazing_." At that, I actually stopped breathing.

_What?! _Shit. _No, oh God no… _She didn't mean… she _couldn't _mean… it had to have been something different. There was no way… because that would mean… My heart sank.

Last night, when… that boy and I had our legs crossed in mid-air, I was overflowing with it. I was pretty sure it was literally _pouring _out of my body. He just stared at it like it was a Jonin-level science question written in the Hidden Cloud Village's native tongue. Other than that, it didn't throw him off at all.

"W-what was it?" I had to decide which I was more afraid of- her, or not knowing the truth. My mind turned back, told me to run like it had been this whole time… but my heart pressed my eyes forward, and I listened. I had to know; this wasn't…

She smiled again, but I ignored her; for some reason, that wasn't as important as this- this could mean _so many things_.

"At first, I couldn't put a name to it. Neither of us had felt it since the night our fathers died, but this was the clearest reminder either of us could get. You've felt it before, Chiasa… three times, I think." I straightened. _Three_? What she said proved that this was the same feeling, but I could only remember it happening to me twice… "Do you know what it is?" I gulped- she really expected me to know this? The story had paused and everything, now I just had to tell her what she wanted to hear.

I had never been good at that.

"It's… um…" Is this what Naruto felt like when Iruka Sensei called on him? I had never really _not _known the answer to anything that didn't have to do with myself. But, as I stared into her intent, suspiciously patient eyes, something in the back of my mind just… told me.

Fuck.

"Fate." I sighed, "It's fate…" I looked back from her satisfied face to their connected hands. Something had to be there, something had to be glowing in the space between their skins that would tell me what was happening. I was _sure _there was something when_ I_ was feeling it. I tried squinting as narrowly as I could, but all there was was blackness.

And he broke through.

_Sasuke… who the hell are you_? The alley across from the Uchiha Village, the symbol on the back of his shirt, even his _voice_… they all just reminded me of something that didn't exist. There was more, too- _I didn't even know what that something was. _I had never talked to him in my life before last night… so how had fate tied us? Why the two of us, the most random people it could put together?

Why did looking at him make me blush? I blushed when I thought his _name_. It wasn't the _oh, she likes him_, sort of thing… really, he disgusted me. I wanted to forget about him, but every time I looked away, he just popped back into my head.

"It's my fault that your special." Yin finally whispered, his dark, maroon voice sending Goosebumps down my back. _Why do you seem so like him_? Were Sasuke and I just a recreation? Was that why Yin's eyes made my head spin, and I felt connected to him on some entirely alien level…?

_No. _I was overthinking this. I overthought _everything_. There was nothing special about Sasuke Uchiha, and if there was, I'd never hear about it. He couldn't control me, no matter how many girls swarmed him. I wouldn't give into him, I wouldn't let him make himself at home in the back of my mind, tormenting me whenever he felt like it.

Fate had nothing to do with us. Whatever that feeling was, it was me being scared, or in awe, or _something _ easy, something reassuring. He attacked me because I looked like I was weak. He went easy on me because I was too pitiful to finish off.

That was all.

The world had been like this since the beginning of time, since about two millennia before the ground I was standing on and the impossibly familiar scene that played out in front of me. Predation- they go for the weak ones, and the weak ones die. Every single time.

But somehow, I managed to be a survivor.

"I was there, the day you were born. I gave my dad- your mom's doctor- this weird, white _rose_… and he put it in this medicine… and it's energy glowed around you when you came out. I didn't look hard enough for a red one because… because I…" It was the most I'd ever heard him say. His voice stung with raspy chords, and his posture was all disgruntled as he tried to shift his eyes away from hers.

Yang stared at him like he was walking away from her. She didn't expect him to look at her again, but she just couldn't stop _watching_. Even after everything she'd been through, after not even shedding a tear over her mother's death, she still had the strength not to be angry. She let her hand fall, and Yin took it like a slap in the face. She saw that. But, as Yin returned to her understanding, compassionate eyes, he still looked up at her. She tried to see equally with him, but he wouldn't give himself the pleasure.

_He's a masochist_. It wasn't because he was like Sasuke. I actually heaved a sigh of relief as the pain flooded his face. I felt this connection with Yin because he was like me. His deep, complicated black eyes were just the same as mine… that was all. We both knew hatred, and there was our connection. I'd probably never have to deal with Sasuke again.

"Yang…" Was it the first time he'd said her name? If it wasn't, it was definitely the first time he'd said it like _this_. I know, because that classic twinge of nausea punched my stomach. They were in _love_, and I couldn't look…"I'm so… so sorry…" And she put her hands around his face, and kissed him.

That's when the second blow came.

_Again, he found himself leaning into this book too much. When characters got too close, his lips parted and he just couldn't stop going. He finally realized what he was doing when he had to turn the page each time, but he went back into his daze quickly enough._

_Ah, the power of the writer- it was greater than that of any Shinobi, even himself. How could one person manipulate senses so well, with only words? He could see the people in the novel as though they were right in front of him, right in front of the sleeping girl who's legs weren't long enough to stretch down and lay against his back. _

_She was very troubled looking- she had winkles between her eyes, and she wasn't even peaceful while she was sleeping. Every now and then she would gasp, shift her weight, and start groaning again. _

_No, she wasn't much like the other two. _

_He had seen her before, walking around the Village with Naruto Uzumaki like a lost dog. She had murmured his names a few times in her sleep, and he couldn't help but picture the way she looked next to him. The only way to really explain her was just… _hollow_. She had hollow cheekbones, hollow eyes, even a hollow frame. All skin and bones, literally. Most people that didn't know better thought she was five years old. She had looked like an infant until she was seven. _

_He sighed, turning back over to see if she was done yet. He was almost convinced that she was going to die, what with how pale she was turning and the constantly darkening bags under her eyes._

_"Sasuke…" He piped up, raising his eyebrows and looking at her to make sure he heard her right. _

No way… _It wasn't weird, he just hadn't seen it coming. With everything he knew, it was just interesting to think that something like this could bring him up in her head… especially given their circumstances. The curiosity started getting at him, but he didn't mind it. He knew for a fact that she'd be dead the second he decided to wake her up. _

_So he waited. _

_Finally, as she hacked a hot, burning liquid up her throat and out into the open air, he knew it was almost time. _

_What Kakashi Hatake didn't notice, however, was that Chiasa Uzumaki's blood, even though it was just a drop, had stained the upper corner of the page of his novel, and that would eventually give him, one of the stealthiest Jonin in the Village, away. _

CHIASA

So, this was what internally throwing up was like.

The air around my heaved over, shivering body was an electric field- th_e fate _between

their _lips _was _scorching_. From my perspective, it looked gross and wet and close and just so… disgustingly meaningful… I gagged again. I was absolutely sure there was nothing _romantic _about this. They stood there looking like total idiots, brushing their hands around each other's faces, but I was the real sucker for being the one who had to watch it.

I mean, _come on_. This, in no way, shape, or form, could contribute to _any _story, anywhere, no matter how fucking messed up it was. _What the hell_? Who could even do something like this? Why weren't they puking their guts up their throats? I felt like ripping my stomach out of my foot.

_Don't say anything, because you _know _she'll just make you watch longer. Oh God, what the fuck… _I heard that soft, pop sound, and looked up through my dropping eye lids. My heart muscles smoothed themselves out in an instant as I saw them broken apart, still breathing on each other from an inch away.

"Why?" Yin breathed, trying to hold his smile down. Yang traced her nose along his jawline until her lips were right up next to his ear, sending more god damn electric pulses through my blood.

I could feel it as soon as the air thickened, dropping subzero instantaneously. Her eyes were cold, but avid- she knew something, and she looked down at him still.

"Because…" she sighed, and, as people so often spoke, there were words behind her words.

_Can't you hear what I'm trying to say? _

"I know what being alone is like."

_I understand you_.

_She didn't think it was possible- no, she _knew _so. In all of her years, not once had such a gutsy, defiant child lived through her. Such a burdensome, unappreciative little girl, fragile as she so obviously was, was still standing, when thousands had fallen before her. _

_She had passed. _

_Despite her thoughts being so conveniently illustrated in her head, she didn't know what to expect of the girl until just before she did something. She was quick; intelligent. Yang couldn't help but wonder, as she always got too caught up in her own past to pay attention, if the girl's sad excuse of a stamina stat had gotten her through this, or if she had persuaded herself into taking it lightly. Whatever the case might've been, now the girl was silent. She wasn't complaining, she wasn't swinging her fists- she didn't even look traumatized, let alone sick to her stomach. In fact, she looked shaken somehow. Was it sympathy? Empathy? Yang hadn't felt the displeasures since she died. _

_As the girl abruptly looked up at her, Yang kept her facial expression clean of the realization she was being forced to undergo. Of course, it was a slight pressure, nothing uncomfortable, but it seemed obvious, as though inscribed on the little girl's forehead, what she had to do to leave her final impression. _

_"You're… a demon. Aren't you?" Her voice was high, childish, underdeveloped along with the rest of her body. Yang raised her eyebrows questioningly, wondering where such a question had come from. A slimy, wriggling warmth crawled up her throat, but she silenced it as soon as it had started. What was that feeling again?_

_Right, amusement. _

_The girl's face shifted downward just slightly into the smallest little pout- it looked as though she didn't even notice it. Was it because Yang had laughed at the idea? She couldn't understand why, but her heart gave a little clench when she played with the thought. Her? Hurt this girl? She didn't want to. Sometimes, to instill fear, or to free herself, she had to. It's what killed the original vessel in the first place. _

_"_My_ demon," the girl corrected herself, "you're inside of me." At this, Yang smiled, masking her horror and astonishment with another valid appreciation. She looked into her eyes, and watched the golden-brown color squeeze their pupils to a pulp. It was amazing, that permanent glare tattooed on her face. Like she didn't trust a single person in the entire world, just because she had been betrayed before. It showed. _

_It all showed. _

_"How did you know?" Yang's voice cracked against her like a whip, sending a wave of energy through her skin. The girl cringed away from her, but her stare didn't back down._

_At least she managed to get the fear in. She didn't feel as though the girl knew about her little quirks; her curled up finger-tips when she was angry, her ever so slightly pursed lips when she was afraid. Now, dubious as she was, her mouth was a fine line on her face as she thought about how to answer. _

Why the sudden change of heart_? She was hard to follow, Yang noted again. Childishly irritable and cowardly before, but calm and thoughtful now. _

_"I heard from someone… he was yelling at Naruto- my brother,_ _telling him-" Yang sighed, cutting her off. Of course, Yang knew what had happened. She knew about the girl's connection with the Uchiha boy, and the truth about her Uzumaki twin as well. How the past events could relate to her conclusion, though… she had no idea. The words weren't fresh in the child's mind, so she had no way of knowing what she was really talking about for sure… _

'…your _demon little sister_.' _The thoughts became a highlight, and transformed into a realization. _Of course_, Yang thought, ignoring the throat licking heat that piled on top of the white-haired man in her mind. She could find a way to kill him, but she hadn't the time or energy._

_Yet. _

_Yang nodded in understanding, but, still puzzled, raised her eyebrow again. _

_"How did you know it was me, though?" Her eyes grew more intense the more Yang talked. A heavy, guiltily pleasurable feeling gathered in the back of her mind. She recognized this one immediately, as she had felt it so many times before._

Smugness.

_"Well… at that one point, where I took control of the scene and turned it into my own memory… I knew this must've been inside my head, but that you were undoubtedly real, since you could hurt me so badly. So, you were someone who wanted to hurt me… inside my head." She stared at the ground warily, in disbelief of what she had just said. The girl glanced up at her pleadingly, wanting her to guide her, to lead her on her explanation, even if only just. _

_For the first and last time in that little girl's life, Yang conceded to her. _

_"How did you know I was that demon?" She couldn't decide if she liked the girl yet. On the one had, the girl was quick. She would save Yang a lot of trouble, but she was more cowardly than the first. Weaker. Scrawnier. If one only briefly looked at them, the decision would be quick; easy. The first vessel, the taller one, was more suited. She had more meat on her bones, more light in her eyes, a loving family… but her mind, apparently, was not as strong as this second's. _

_The second swallowed, moistening the dry, uncomfortable walls of her throat before she spoke. _

_"You told me things about me that I didn't even know… You told me that I'd felt fate three times, but I had forgotten the first. It must've been years ago, and people've wanted to stab me since I was little..." She said it like anyone could've figured it out; like most people could've seen it as easily as she could. _

_Yes, on the one hand, Yang almost liked the poor thing. She was quiet, concealed- _observant. _But on the other, she made Yang sympathetic and understanding. She bore a past on her shoulders they could connect with, and relate to each other through. _

_Yang hated that._

_She could tell what the girl was really like, around others. Disrespectful, from the way she screamed out whenever she didn't like something, from her low groaning and high pitched squeaks. Supposedly nonchalant, with her angry mask and a defaulted cool disposition. _

_However, nothing could get passed her. She was the Goddess of light, the most beautiful demon you'd ever see. Her eyes were all seeing; everything. What that girl's mind hadn't understood was the clearing- the beautiful place where they had met. She didn't understand that every beautiful spec of land there illustrated what she was on the inside, what she had the capability of becoming externally. Yang lived in the little one's soul. _

Chiasa Uzumaki. _Yang tested the name out in her head. It was the first time she'd thought it for herself, so no one else could hear, but it didn't feel alien. _How ironic_, she thought, feeling the smugness bubble up inside of her again_. "One thousand mornings." _Such a light, happy name. How ironic, though, that Chiasa's dark days had barely even started yet. It was funny to remind herself that this was the marking of the darkness that would lead to Chiasa's end, to destroying her in every way Yang could force it to. _

_Because it was her job to take that light away from her. _

CHIASA

Her voice rang with finality, and the intervals between questions got longer. As the seconds passed, I felt her grow more and more resigned. The creases in her forehead eased, and she even let a warmhearted smile drift across her face, like she had just before the story started.

It didn't add up.

I knew she noticed my furrowed brow- she wasn't stupid, and neither was I. Both of us knew it, so what was she doing?

"… glad you finally got the truth out of what I told you." She finished saying with a sigh. _No! _I wasn't done yet. I had finally started to learn something- _anything _about me. Was she really going to take that relief away from me, and make me even more agonizingly curious?

That bitch knew exactly how to torture me.

"Wait… Yang, stop." _Keep your voice even, _I told myself, trying to breathe my swirling anger down. She raised her eyebrows at me, still smiling.

Oh, I was so done.

_Stop. _

"You said you were going to 'show me my past!'" I yelled out at her, fighting to keep myself rooted in the same spot. _So much for keeping calm... No, fuck that. _I was going to have this meltdown. I deserved this. "All you gave me was an incomplete story of how you ended up _making _out with your _boyfriend_. So what? Two flowers came out of the sky and gave you magic powers? What the _hell_? What aren't you telling me? How did all of this just _happen _to you?! To _me_?!" I knew why my Chakra was white now, and that was about it. If you add the fact that I had no idea what the hell she was _doing _in here, making my Chakra so blinding, my life and understanding were just as hopelessly pathetic as they were before. Even when I was this angry, though, I wasn't dumb enough to jump at her. Not again.

Suddenly, her eyes went cold. I froze mid-rant as her expression dropped, and she stared at me blankly. This impulse crawled across my skin, and ultimately, she stared through me. I wasn't there. At least, if I was, she wasn't looking at me. She was focused on something much bigger, something too big that I felt anyone could really understand.

"Juubi." She murmured, and the world went black.

I lost my balance as soon as she said it, and fell to the floor with a broken down gasp. _What is this_? I felt my eyelids get heavy as the floor beneath my hands started glowing. _Why… do I feel so… distant, all of a sudden? _I had to fight subconsciously to keep my head on my shoulders. _What the hell is going on? _

The floor turned a deep, inviting maroon, enticing me to lean into its body and close my eyes... and I didn't feel like I'd ever wake up.

_Genjutsu. That's what Genjutsu feels like…_

What did shock me to my senses, though, was the large, deep black dot that materialized under my hand. Eyes widening, I looked around my body, across the rest of the ground, and saw maybe ten black, comma-shaped icons hanging from the black circles surrounding the pupil.

_An eye… but what…_? This wasn't like anything I'd ever seen before. The blue man… the man with the yellow eyes… not even the old man Hokage added up to this. Sasuke and Hibachi would crumble at this thing's feet, and I was already a pile of ashes. It wasn't even the normal freeze up, get Goosebumps, and start shaking type of fear, either. I was just an empty shell of whatever remains of myself I was before. A summary of a summary.

Nothing.

"That's right: you're _nothing_." Yang's voice was eerily monotonous now, lifeless under the eye, as I was. If I could remember how to, I would've gulped. _Even she… _even Yang was powerless under this thing. "I'm nothing; no one is anything but the Juubi's puppet, because _the Juubi is fate_. The Juubi decides our lives, knows how we'll carry them out, knows when we'll die. If it doesn't like something, it changes it. We do everything we do because the Juubi wants us to." Fate… I was starting to hate the sound of the word. What was it? A dictation, a guideline that we all had no choice but to follow?

"Yes. The Juubi damned me to this fate so that it could damn you to it. My past and your future, Chiasa, are now one and the same." Sweat slid it's way across my face, down my nose and along my jawline, until it dripped down onto the eye. _What's…. happening to me? _The skin on my arms stung and burned as though the eye was _melting _it. I winced and looked away, trying not to scream, not wanting to see the red gashes that must've been there.

"You were right; there was a second part to my story. I'm not going to spoon-feed it to you now, though, because you're going to have to earn it. That will explain everything." _Why_? I knew she could hear me, but the blood up my throat clogged my ability to try talking. I had to barely squint to see her, the flashing, angelic white light in the blackness of the Juubi's presence. _Why did you start if you weren't going to finish_? She sighed condescendingly, as though I didn't understand something.

She was right.

As her silent, steady foot steps planted vibrations in the ground, it felt like senbon to my hands and feet. I flopped onto my stomach just in time for her to reach me and bend over, for me to futilely try and pull myself up, to search for that last bit of fight that I just didn't have anymore.

"Honestly?" She smiled, though she spoke in the same, empty voice. "Because you were supposed to die after Yin and Yang combined. The energy was supposed to be too much for you to handle, but it wasn't, so your fate is set now." The skin-splitting, teeth gnashing holes started punching themselves up my back, knocking the wind out of me over and over again.

_I'm definitely dying. You're wrong. I am definitely going to die. _

As soon as her head snapped up, the red eye flickered off. I expected to feel the relief wash through me, but the pain only got stronger, only ate away at me quicker now.

My heart sank; that could only mean… that Yang was the one doing this to me.

I was never going to get away from this, would I? I hadn't known a single thing about this for twelve years, yet it already felt like it had been carved in my skull for my entire freaking life.

Six silhouettes appeared, white lights outlining them against the black, but I could only make out three of their figures.

The first was tall and bold, intimidating yet welcoming. He had a couple of long, narrow spikes sticking out the top of his head, almost looking like ears… but his eyes were the really impressionable parts. Don't ask me to describe them to their full extent, because I wouldn't be able to. Even through the searing pain that was making it's way to my neck, though, I could distinctly make them out over everything else. They were bright; highlighted, even… a vibrant lavender color. It had a strangely elegant pattern, ripple like, with black rings circling each other around the pupil.

"Within months," Yang started, watching as the overall focus shifted to the one next to him, "you're going to see signs of me around you. You'll understand, but not enough to satisfy you. Not even close." My chest was peeling off, and my eyes watered as I examined this one.

She was just a short girl with straight hair, from what I could see. Again, though, it was the eyes that I couldn't stop staring at. These weren't patterned in any specific way, they were just a brilliant, striking, hot pink. Not a subtle pink, like Sakura Haruno's hair, but a big, _look at me_! Fucking… _pink_. They were warm, too… even in my state, heat shot through me and liquefied my pain for a second, providing me with a millisecond of relief.

The final figure was a fully colored image of what was arguably the most beautiful girl I'd ever seen- even more so than Yang. She was tan, with thick eye lashes and pitch black hair, but she had a pair of brilliant grey eyes and Yang's heart-shaped face. I actually had to blink to make sure I was seeing everything right, but by the time I opened my eyes again, she was gone.

In her stead were yet another pair of eyes, these ones by far the most breath taking.

They were almost a combination of the Juubi's eye and the first figure's eye… but they were golden, like Yang's from the story. They had the same ripple pattern, and three commas lay on the circle closest to the center of the eye… but there was no pupil.

I wasn't awed when I saw it though, no… actually, I felt more power than I had in my entire life, and I _wanted _them… they were so… entirely… _knowing_. I felt like they could see absolutely _everything_, from minds to a detailed version of another planet. I wouldn't be so weak if I had those, no…

"Do you like the Subetegan?" Yang's voice echoed around me, and a shock pierced through my veins like a kunai to the chest. _Subetegan… _"_everything eye_." I liked that.

"You can have that power, Chiasa… but you need _me_ to get it." The pain came at me tenfold then, and my eyes slammed shut.

Damn her! Was she going to say goodbye to me like _that_- leave me with a burden, that classic cliché? Was she _really_? Even as I felt myself actually disintegrate, as though acid was spilling on top of me, I could curse her with my last breath.

"When you feel like you need me," my blood covered the floor of the now-white room like a waterfall had spilled it out, and a scream got caught up in the flood in my mouth. The thick, iron liquid spurted out like a geyser, and she kept talking. "… call on me. I'll lend you my power… but as soon as you do that… you'll be mine."

And finally, for the last time, the world went completely and entirely black.

I shot up, thrusting my hands down onto the soft, high quality cotton that I'd felt maybe once in my life. Sweat spilled off my forehead and into my eyes, and my heart sounded for the whole Leaf Village to hear.

There wasn't a scratch on me.

"Oh, you're finally up." An obnoxiously nonchalant voice penetrated my horror, and my hand flew to my mouth as I stared at the figure sitting at the edge of my bed.

What the hell was going on? What bastard… what asshole put me in a hospital? _There was no way that was just a dream_. That idea never entered my mind, not once. _I'm _not _that creative_…

"Did you sleep well? It's four thirty in the morning- you're supposed to graduate today." I heard a page in a book turning, and somehow- though I might have been imagining it- smelt my own blood.

_"Hokage-sama!" The calling of his title was followed by three loud, consecutive knocks, announcing the leaf code for an emergency. Sitting up and taking a tired breath of smoke, Hiruzen Sarutobi cleared his throat._

_This could only mean one thing._

_"Come in!" He ordered in his scratchy, aged voice. He hadn't slept all night because of this- he knew that the fate of the world depended on that night, and he wouldn't have slept if he _could _have._

_Mitate entered the Hokage's office, still in his medical-nin, standard white uniform, and sighed to introduce his troubles. Not quite able to decipher what that meant, Hiruzen motioned for his underling to sit down. Mitate, passed the awkwardness he would normally get caught up in, conceded to his offer without a second thought. _

_A moment of silence passed between the two, but there wasn't any room for hesitation here. Having the Hokage's nod of approval, Mitate commenced._

_"Hokage-sama, I'm not sure if it's good news or not." Normally, Sarutobi wouldn't have a problem trying to dig for what he wanted- he did it all the time. Patience and playing therapist were part of his job- but so was keeping his village safe. _

_"Out with it, Mitate." The doctor loosened his color, taking a deep breath._

_"The vessel-" _

_"Call her Chiasa, please." He always insisted that Chiasa and Naruto both be referred to by their names- Mitate didn't see the purpose, but there was no point in arguing with the him now._

_"Alright… Chiasa Uzumaki survived, sir. Kakashi's carrying her back to her house now, because she refused to spend the night at the hospital." He expected disbelief to strike the Hokage's face. He expected him to be angry that she had left their watch, or horrified because there was no telling what Yang would do now, but he just remained silent, and solemnly approved._

_"That's good. Being with her brother will be good for her." He was missing the point, clearly. _

_"But, sir… what should we do now? With all do respect, if we were to banish the girl, the village might be-" The Hokage raised his hand to cut the man off. He would never get rid of the Uzumaki children- not in a million years. Everyone knew that. After all, he had promised Minato that he'd keep them safe…_

_As for what he should do, though… he thought this should've been a given, so he lifted his eyebrow in what was almost amusement. _

_"We don't really have a choice." Mitate grew pale. _Of course_, he realized… that _would _be what the Hokage was thinking. He couldn't blame him- that woman was trusted and mature, unlike the other two that stayed loyal, but someone like that… for such a tiny, horrible little girl? _

_"Are you sure, Hokage-sama?" His voice was no lower than a squeak, but Hiruzen gave him a final, dismissive nod._

_"Positive. Mitate, I want you to go now, and get Avaron." And, just in time, her rhythmic nocking came, assertively tapping its way to their attention at his window. _

_**Sorry it took so long everyone! Finals are coming up soon, and this one happened to be really long... Happy New Year! Please tell me what you think ^.^**_


	7. Seven

**I am incredibly sorry about that very long pause in between chapters XD This chapter is MUCH longer than the previous ones and I sent it to my friend for review before I posted it, she still hasn't read it... so here it is anyway. Chapter 8 might be a while as well, because... finals... hope you enjoy! ~ xx**

Chapter Seven

Seven

CHIASA

It was all a blur, remembering at first. I could catch glimpses of a pair of eyes, tastes of overwhelming pains, and even the sound of a silky, melodic voice, chanting to me… Who _was_ she? What was her name? Was she really _that_ important if I could just forget her? No… there was something.

There was something.

I sighed and rolled over on something hard, something uncomfortable, but… something I was used to. Suddenly, the thought dawned on me that I had no idea what this solid thing punching my stomach was. _Where am I_? My mouth circled around a yawn as I knotted my finger tips in a soft, ratty fabric that covered the rest of my body.

_Oh, _damn… My mouth started salivating as my lips parted, and I heaved the warm air down my nostrils before it left, letting my chest fly up with an oxygen overflow. _What's that… _smell? Now this, I could really put my finger on. This was that luscious scent that I _craved_, this was that soft, underrated steam that I… couldn't really seem to put a name to.

"Are you awake, Chiasa? Or… can I eat your _ramen_?"

A wake up call washed through me.

_His voice_… Was it really? _His beautiful, mischievous, pre-pubescent voice_… I didn't know how much I missed it until it hit me again. It was like being under water for so long that my lungs were disintegrating, and my mouth was about to force itself open to suck in a mouthful of deadly liquid, but instead... it was ramen and Naruto and... That relieving sensation that spread through my chest; that relieving sensation that let me breathe again.

I felt like crying.

"Naruto…" My voice was hysterical as my eyes flew open, and I tried- even though my muscles were still raw from Chakra loss- to push myself up to a sit. My eyes locked with his warm, ocean blue ones, and I bit my lip, trying to hold my elation down.

I looked at my sleeping bag- _ my own _house! For whatever reason, it was _comforting _that nothing could hurt me here. I ran my hand along the rough fabric of the faded green bed mat, taking in my ability to move without fear, without pain, without worry…

I didn't think I would ever be so happy to see this place.

Naruto squinted at me, holding his stuck together chopsticks with both of his hands, pointing them downwards towards the cup of instant ramen in front of him.

A chuckle leaked out of my shivering lips, and I forsook the world for a moment as I watched him somehow manage to blink when his eyes were already closed. _Yes, I understand, Naruto_. I eyed the chair across from him, taking in the other cup of Ramen that was obviously meant for me. _You're hungry. _

"Morning…" He spoke in moans, obviously exhausted. Taking a deep, calming breath, I glanced at the clock.

I couldn't believe my eyes.

_8:00?! _It was _eight in the morning_? And he was _awake? _

"I was serious. Can I have your ramen or what?" It smelt like Miso- that was my favorite kind. How could he expect me to pass that up? I threw the covers off and slowly dragged my body to a stand.

My muscles ached, my shoulders were tense, and my legs were too wobbly to support me. As soon as I managed to stand up, I heard my back _snap_, and the wind ran through my hair as I plummeted to catch myself with my hands.

_Again, just another day in paradise... _I should've been used to it by eyes were wide as I stared straight at the cracks in the ceiling, and within about ten seconds, Naruto was next to me. First, his bare foot came into my range of sight, and I realized he was still in his pajamas.

As he reached his hands under my shoulders and yanked me up to my feet, I could see my pout reflected in his mind. Was he really this used to picking me up after I fell on my face? I wasn't _that _pathetic… right?

But he saved me. The memory dropped through me like a rock in my stomach, and suddenly… he was taller than me; I was more limp than him. More helpless.

_"If you lay… another hand… on _either _of them… _I'll kill you!" _He'd… kill someone… for me…_

"Thanks," I mumbled, backing out of his grip. When I started wobbling again, he sighed and put a hand on my shoulder, still beaming.

"Hah! You really shitfaced yourself. What did you _do?_"

As we got to the table and I sat down, I still could _not _put my finger on it. What _had _happened yesterday? Why was I so achy? I could remember being attacked by at_ least _four different people…

"I, um…" Our chairs didn't have backs to them, and my spine tingled as his dragged across the floor and squeaked as he sat down in it. "I'm really not sure." _Come on_… yesterday was _so eventful_, I could _feel _it. Why couldn't I remember any of it? Feeling his questioning gaze on my face, I broke apart my chopsticks and leaned over my breakfast.

"If I don't remember what happened, It's probably no big deal…" I snagged some of the noodles and pulled them up out of the water, letting them cool in mid air before I slurped them down. "What's all this about, anyway?" He'd never done _this_ before… Even _I _only did it once or twice, when he wasn't terrorizing the Village. He'd actually thought to put out _milk cartons_. I didn't even _know _he knew we needed drinks with breakfast. Not to mention the fact that neither of us hardly ever ate the meal to begin with…

"Well, I figured… since it's _today_ and everything…" I blinked. _'Today_…?' He wasn't really paying attention- his eyelids were drooping, and he idly shook his milk in his ear before drinking it. It sloshed around in the carton, hitting the walls of the container with slow, repulsive _thuds. _I eyed the expiration date on mine, and brought my palm to my face. Just as he was about to touch the thing to his mouth, the smell of a molded cheese punched me in the face.

"Naruto, wait!" I gasped, thanking the world for giving me advanced _hearing _instead. That strong a smell this early in the morning would've just ruined my day that much earlier. He stopped, raising his eyebrows at me. "It's… expired…" Well, at least he tried. He seemed to be mentally searching for the meaning of the word expired as he cocked his head at the carton, dropping it back on the table. He then went back to his ramen with so much excitement that you'd think the stuff was actually quality.

"So… today." I felt weirdly _empty_, like the world should look so much less _bland _to me… and I should've been… so much more angry and sarcastic than this… but it was like I had just forgotten how to see it. I didn't feel the need to hate my surroundings at that point. I scratched my head, picking up the cup to slurp the over-salted broth down.

"Are you _serious_?" His gusto hit me like a slap in the face- I didn't remember what ramen did to him this early. "Today's the _day_! We're _official_, now, Chiasa! Genin! Iruka Sensei's going to 'start us out,' or whatever, and now it's every man for himself! Believe it!" My heart sank, my hands went limp, and my breakfast started plunging through the air, all the way down to the floor.

_Splat_.

It all came flooding back to me, just like it must've when I met Yang… Oh _shit_, I remembered her. I remembered the torture, the not _knowing_, and even that weird man who had lifted me up so easily and brought me home after the fact- _he _was familiar too, a part of him even reeked of my own blood- and the conversation that came with him…

I backed up my chair, standing up firmly, staring past my brother's face up to the window that I had been jumping to see through two days ago… Yes, two. I had slept through yesterday, and fought my way to this morning through a long, agonizing stare down with... with _her._

Yet I was hardly rested at all.

_"Tell me who you _are!_" He was holding me with one arm under my knees and the other reaching all the way around my body, grabbing my wrist and pressing me into the center of his chest. "What are you _doing _here? How do you… how do you know what just happened to me?!" Did he want to kill me too? It didn't make any sense- I had heard these thoughts before, but I had never seen anyone who'd fit in this man's silhouette. _

_"Be quiet." He sounded bored as a consistent banging and bouncing up and down sent agonizing shock waves through my skull. "You're going to wake up the entire Village." For whatever reason, probably because he was pushing a pressure point, I was immobile. Every muscle in my body was like jelly in his arms, and I couldn't help but notice how weirdly strong he was- he didn't feel like he had very large limbs or a particularly muscular chest, but he was hard as a rock, and he could've crushed me. _

_Why didn't he? _

_"Listen, Chiasa. I don't know as much as you think I know. You just talk in your sleep." I felt my cheeks get hot, but I just kept glaring at him. I didn't _care _if the Village _woke up_. They'd have to go fuck themselves at _least _a hundred times before I gave one. But I really just had nothing to say to this man, even though there was still that something... "I need you to do me a favor." I wished I could shake my head, bite him, use _Mind Possession _on him or… or _anything_…_

_"And why should _I _listen to _you? _I don't even know who you _are_!" He sighed condescendingly, like I was some little girl who didn't "_understand" _what he was trying to pull. What _was_ he? Too high maintenance? Since when were there grown men who were more prissy than _I _was? _

_"Well, I could tell you that your life depends on it, but that would be a little unsettling." I pursed my lips- my face seemed to be working, but that was about it. Something about him was actually sort of pleasant, but at the same time, it made me wish I could punch him in the face. _

_Not that it would hurt, but… _

_"Just don't tell anyone_ _about _anything _you just witnessed or were told. Okay? You ran out of Chakra because you were ambushed three times in one night, and that's why you passed out. That's all anyone else needs to know. As far as they're concerned, you slept peacefully." I gulped, squeezed my eyes shut, and tried to focus on the something hiding in his cumbersome mind-clouds_… _Whatever he was saying should've registered; I knew that, but that something… _wasn't _that all that _had_ happened? What did I think he _knew_? _

_"Chiasa? If you stop talking, I'm going to assume that you're dead." He might've felt me cringe, but his worries were nearly irrelevant. Still, though… Just an, "oh, she's dead." Type of thing, then? That was all I got? It seemed like a fitting death for me. He didn't sound worried, but he didn't sound obligated either… still just monotonously bored, like his thoughts._

_"You should be so lucky…" I mumbled, knowing that he'd hear me. He ignored the comment, but I could hear his thoughts stop wandering. Their exact content, I couldn't make out, but… damn, how could he manage to be so _concealed_? The Third Hokage wasn't even… _

_"Chiasa… Did you hear me? You can't tell _anyone._" My eyes gradually started bulging as everything he said slowly set in. A white light reared its head in my mind, a face, a song…and I knew they made sense here. I didn't know how, but they were somehow… somehow my something. "That means…" No. _No. _They couldn't _do _this to me! If they knew what I had just gone through, why would they… why would they really…?!_

_"Not even Naruto," I breathed. _

"Oy, Chiasa? Chiasa!" He whined, bringing me back to reality. Tears stung my eyes as I stared back at him, my brother, the one person I trusted, the only person who cared about me. We'd always waited for today together… ever since I could remember. Naruto was always… _always _there….

And now he'd never know my biggest secret.

I pushed down on the table, taking in little gasps of air, not meeting his eyes, and attempted to support myself.

_He was there for you. _I told myself, still not willing to look at him. _He protected you when you thought you were going to die. _That one was like a blow to my chest. _That's right… _I'd protected him before too, through some strange, unknown courage that I'd never even known I had... Was that Yang, also? Regardless, she'd helped me protect him- and then, not even two days ago, he'd saved my life.

_"If you lay… another hand on either of them… _I'll kill you!" I couldn't chase those words away. He saved me, and he didn't even know me. _I _didn't even know _myself_… and now what? Now that I'd skimmed the story of a snowy, gorgeous monster trapped inside of me, did I know anything about myself?

No.

"You just let _perfectly _good ramen go to waste!" I scrunched up my face, covered my mouth with my hands, and tried to suffocate the cry that was about to sound.

_You have to be strong, dammit. Of all times, now, for Naruto, you have to be fucking strong. _I swallowed it and nodded, rubbing the wetness off of my face and breathed to force the red off.

I couldn't think about her. I _wouldn't_. I wouldn't sit idly by, still under her power, still caged by her curse. She didn't have control over me, because I wouldn't give it to her.

I would never use that power.

"Humph, I was already done with it, ya know!" That was something I'd say… I hoped. I ducked down, bent over, and picked it up, leaving the stain there. We didn't have any towels to clean it up with besides the ones we used after taking baths- plus, the floor already had enough stains to become the cockroach headquarters for a hundred mile radius.

"_I _would've eaten it…"He crossed his arms and stuck out his lower lip as I tossed the ramen into the trash. A smile spread across my face again, and before I knew it, that unfamiliar laughter was slithering out my throat.

It just wasn't the time.

"Ichiraku's open late." He piped up, excited at the very sound of the name. I laughed again, throwing my head back this time.

How could he… make me forget these things so easily? _I won't… die, Naruto. _ I let out another yawn, putting my hands on my hips and smiling. "We should probably get dressed." _You don't have to… protect me._ Naruto stared at me for a second, stroked his fake beard, twirled a whisker between his fingertips, and gave me a thoughtful nod.

I sighed. _Douchebag… _

"Say, Chiasa?" I was walking over to my little mini-dresser while he walked across the room to his. _Oh God… _"What do you think Iruka Sensei would do if I went to school in my underwear?" There were two, five and a half foot tall room dividers on either side that the two of us changed behind. I grabbed my clothes as I pictured the image in my head.

_Most of the girls would be busy staring at Sasuke… Sasuke would roll his eyes in agitation… Hinata Hyuga would do a double take… but… _God, I really loved him. Only _he _could be so oblivious to my depressed, incoherent mumbles that he'd let his mind roam to such beautifully distracting things.

"He'd probably tell you to transform, but then he'd realize that that obviously wouldn't solve the problem..." Naruto's easy, booming laughter echoed across the room as I turned to the Mirror on my wall, zipping up my fly.

The same, bagged brown eyes echoed my daily confliction, and Naruto faded for a moment as we examined each other through the glass.

_Who is she_? I never abandoned my own eyes as I blindly tried to reach for my shirt. _She's his sister… she's Iruka Sensei's student… she's one of the Leaf Village's kunoichi… _

But who was "she?"

_She's not pretty_… but she had never wanted to be. Sometimes, she'd forget what she stood for and wish, just for a second, that she was… but she knew that ultimately, it wouldn't make a difference. Would people treat her any differently? Would they be kinder? More sympathetic, at least? But she knew, oh, she _knew_….

There was no point going on about the What-if's and the Would-this-be's. They were questions for a reason. But still…

_No, no… look at yourself_. I pulled the blouse over my head, looking at the blue and white contrasting with the rest of my coloration. _Maybe… _maybe's were pointless too. I did this _all the time_… but _maybe… _

Maybe if her hair wasn't a broken apart, pointed down afro full of the only, crazy tight curls in the entire world… maybe if she was at least five feet tall… maybe if her lips weren't so dry and narrow , or if her bones didn't practically stick out, or if her head wasn't so small and round-shaped, yet showed her cheekbones more prominently than anything else under it's bright pink color, or maybe even if that pasty, overly pale skin didn't outshine her Chakra, or if her eyelashes weren't little, blonde, unnoticeable stubs… Maybe then, she'd be…

"Are you _ready_!? Come on! This is _it_, believe it!" His second 'believe it' in the same morning broke my girlish fantasy, and I mentally prepared myself to survive my last little day in hell.

That was ironic; I was never the girl to make people wait. And I was _staring _at my own _reflection_… I made myself sick sometimes. Turning away from the undersized freak, I was about to yell back at him when I saw something glint in the sun at the top of my dresser.

Oh, shit. Right. _This is _it. I grabbed the headband and turned straight back to the mirror again- I had worn it once, in the heat of a moment, but I hadn't seen if I really looked like a Ninja there- not that it was important, but I didn't want to walk around looking like an idiot. So I grasped it at both ends with my fists, taking in my awkward, stick-like reflection, and wrapped it around my forehead.

Oh, fuck… I _did _look awkward. That girl in my class- Sakura Haruno- she had a _six-_head. Most people had foreheads- but I… _I_ had a _three_-head. _That_ didn't bother me, because it was hardly noticeable, but the fabric on the bottom of the plate drooped over my eyebrows and cut off the top of my vision.

I sighed, peeling it off my face. Since it was supposed to be a part of us when we were fighting, where a Ninja wore their headband kind of represented how they felt about themselves. The forehead wasn't the right place for me, anyway- it made my head cock to the side because I couldn't hold it up completely, and it didn't represent me… that wasn't who I was. If a Ninja wore their forehead protector on their head, they wanted people to see them as _bold_. As _strong_. I wasn't… I just wasn't any of that. Naruto would definitely wear it there… _he _was strong, to me, at least… and he was _definitely _bold, but… I wasn't.

Ruefully, I brought it around and wrapped it around my neck, letting it protect my throat instead. _Yes, that looks right_. That was who I was; this was who I was meant to be. My fate. Around the neck, like a necklace, meant you were faded, wanted to hide yourself. It was the opposite of a forehead protector- it meant I was a background Ninja.

Did I like that? I looked at myself for another minute, happy that it made me look a _little _bulkier… no. I really, really didn't. But this was how I was born. If the headband was alive, I'd probably feel the connection between us, just like I had with Sasuke and Yang.

"_Chiasa!_" He dragged out the last 'a' to give my name a complaining edge, and I snapped back to reality.

"I'm _coming, _I'm _coming_. Calm the fuck down…" _One more day_. I smiled at the thought as I turned out to walk with him.

"It's about time…" He stuck his tongue out at me as he reached for the door knob. _One more day of all of them, and then it'll just be us. _No one had any idea what happened after we became Genin- the people who were already Ninja weren't aloud to tell us.

_Just us…_ At least, that's what I'd thought before the hour past.

NARUTO

"Honestly? I really don't think anyone would mind that much." I stretched out my arms behind my head as we walked down the Sidepass, letting the hot June sun beat down on our necks. I could see it now- the jaw-dropping, boner-worthy sight of _me_, strutting in there in a pair of boxers… I'd be so sexy that Iruka _Sensei _would like it. Why couldn't Chiasa just _understand _that?

"Because I'm your sister, and that would be wrong. And stupid. That too." She replied in her usual idle sigh, staring around at the bright, colorful buildings that greeted us behind the picket fence. She dragged her feat in the dirt, and if you looked at her, you wouldn't think she was paying any attention at all. That was the funny thing about her: when she wasn't looking, that's when she was listening the hardest. It made it _impossible _to say shit around her… "I can hear you, you know." I narrowed my eyes and stared at the side of her head, sticking my tongue out at her.

"And, I saw that."

"_Cheater_!" So then, the dirt decided to fly up and haze our vision for a second; it took me a few years of recalling the moment to realize that I'd kicked the ground in frustration. This happened _every day_. _Nothing _ever got by her. Absolutely _nothing. _

I took a deep breath, ready.

"Look, all I'm saying is that, if I went to school in my underwear, they'd like it." She finally smiled, and I had to wonder... Chiasa probably smiled five times on a good day, and four and a half of them were because of me... So, if I could get _her _with my skill, imagine what _Sakura _might do when she saw me…

I could see it now. Me, a red hat on my head, cheered on by the entire Village, getting personally saluted by Sasuke _and _Kiba… And Sakura…! She'd think I was the coolest thing ever! I mean, I was, but soon she'd finally realize it. I could picture the scene in my head- me: Naruto, the next Hokage, caught by hands of my nakama… I could hear them screaming my name already, chanting it as they threw me up and down with their shouts. _"Na-ru-to! –Na-ru-to!" …_That would be the day.

"Um… hey, Naruto?" I jumped, , and spun around to where my name came from. It was Chiasa, furrowing her brow at the fence with apprehensive eyes. I hadn't even noticed she'd stopped, but when I followed her gaze… I saw what she was staring at.

_Oh… Great… _Something in my stomach wriggled around; I hadn't even drunken any of the milk that morning, yet he was so bellyaching that I had to clutch my gut in misery before he even tried. In fact, the first time I had ever gotten a stomach ache in my entire _life _was probably the day that this little bastard was born.

I guess I couldn't really expect anything less, but I mean… _come on_. There was a _lump _in the fence. Just a short, big, unnatural lump… it wasn't even the right color.

I sighed, and she looked at me questioningly. _Just… just watch…. _I knew she could hear me. _Three… two…_

"Fight me, here and now! I'm sick of waiting, _ultimate Hokage rival_!" In an instant, the wind stripped his narrow, practically see-through sheet that he had covered himself with straight off his body. A rip shredded the center of the blanket, and I had to fight to keep looking... He started to take a step towards me, but then… his foot caught up in the fabric that still draped to the floor from his hand, and he fell idiotically on his face.

Was he _trying _to get beat up? He was lucky I didn't hate him…

"Well… played… Brother Naruto." He looked up at me with dirt caking his face, gasping for air as he started to push himself up. "This is why I… respect you…"

Sometimes I used to wonder if I was stupid. If I was, I decided that I'd be the best at it. That way, I'd still be kicking ass at _something_… but that was before I met Konohamaru. There was that fire in his eyes- he was looking up to me through it- but for just one, fatal second, his eyes darted to Chiasa.

They stayed there.

_Oh shit… shit, shit, shit, shit… _He actually _surprised her_- she had jumped back a few feet, her face was pale, and she looked like she was shaking as she struggled to reorient herself.

Chiasa hated kids.

Chiasa hated people who were viewed respectfully.

Chiasa hated Konohamaru.

That… _look! She was no better than the rest of them- he could see it from the start. Konohamaru watched the girl next to Brother Naruto hastily as she stared at him with these wide, bug-eyes. _She recognizes me, _he realized, clenching his fists. _She's giving me the "freak look." She… she knows… Who _is _she? _He narrowed his eyes_ _into glowering slits, staring her down until she noticed. _

That… glare_… What kind of repulsive, annoying little kid _was _this? She had never seen him before; what was he doing, sneaking up on the two of them? What did he _want_? It wasn't even just that, but now he was murderously _glaring _at her, just like the rest of them did… he couldn't have been more than eight years old. What did _he _know? Probably nothing- nothing about life, nothing about death, and nothing about her. _

_She mirrored the look in his eyes. _

_"Um… Chiasa, this is Konohamaru. Konohamaru… Chiasa." They didn't seem to hear Naruto- he was busy worrying about what he'd have to _clean up _after this … but they were too caught up in the shock of the moment to hear anything besides their own thoughts. _

_"Who are _you_?" Konohamaru folded his arms across his chest and rose his eyebrows, waiting for an answer. He didn't actually care _who _she was, he just wanted to know who she _thought _she was. For someone like _her _to be looking at _him _like that? She'd never even _seen _him before! What could she _possibly _know about him that would make her hate him so much? Konohamaru chuckled in the back of his mind. _Maybe she's just _jealous._

_She gnashed her teeth together and hissed through them. "I… am… not jealous._ I really promise; r-really_." She bit her lip, waiting for the astonishment to cross his face. What could he possibly have- knowing that she didn't have it- that would make her so envious? Where was the importance that he seemed to place so heavily on himself? But his mind was violated, and it served him right- let _him _get taken aback now. It was _his_ turn. If she had more Chakra, she'd have finished his sentences for him. "Besides…" her face flushed red, but her eyes never fell. "I… I… I could ask you the same damn thing!"_

_Were the waterworks coming? _Oh God… _Naruto covered his face with his palm. _

_"Oh _yeah_?!" _Both _of them were red. Now he _really _wanted to know who the hell this was, standing in front of him and making a fool of herself. Some short, scrawny, mind reading, random _bitch_? Konohamaru took a step forward to see how his height compared to hers. He probably weighed more, at the very least- he could take her. "What are _you_ doing with someone as awesome as Brother Naruto?!" She opened her mouth, exasperated. _

_"What are _you _doing behind a _fence_?!" The two of them were right on top of one another now, breathing down each other's backs. She looked at him skeptically, but she didn't look like she was thinking when he pointed a tiny, stubby finger at her face. He didn't even _look _mature enough to draw to stupid conclusions about her. What was he doing, staring up at someone who had seven inches on him? She bit the inside of her cheek when he looked like he was about to open his mouth. _

_"LISTEN HERE, I'M_-"

_One second, he was about to give her what was coming to her, but the next… his hand was pointing in the complete opposite direction, freezing cold, like something icy had just attempted to pull an assassination in its veins._

_She'd slapped it. _

So fast…! _It didn't even hurt, and he hadn't moved… but he'd hardly seen it coming! He looked back at her to see her flushed, breathing heavily with tears dripping off the side of her face. He blinked. _

_"Why are you _crying_…?" She wheezed, covering her mouth like he'd just cursed her parent's graves and beaten the shit out of her. _

_This was when Konohamaru first realized that girls would always be confusing. _

_"Who… do you think you are, kid?" It was obvious that things weren't going to go well between the two of them any time soon, so Naruto cleared his throat._

_Nothing happened. _

_"I'm the Third Hokage's _Grandson_." He rolled his eyes, hating the words coming out of his mouth. But she'd heard arrogance, and looked at her brother for help. He could see the words in her expression- hear the complaining in her scrunched together eyebrows as she looked at him. _

All this makes me want to do… is hit him harder.

_Naruto nodded at her, as though to say he understood, and she sighed. _

_"Hokage's grandson, huh?" He couldn't believe this was a surprise to her. Did she just _naturally_ hate people? Why the hell was she staring at him like that if she didn't even know who he _was_? "I get it, so you're _royalty_." Konohamaru froze, fire shooting through his veins as her lips curled around the word. _Royalty. Royalty. Royalty… _He was dis_gusting _to her, wasn't he? What did _she_ know about _him_? _

_What did _he_ know about _her_? He'd probably been pampered his entire life- brought up on diapers made out of silk. What could he possibly see in her, a broke, anguished little orphan who had to have her clothes _provided, _that he could decide he could be judgmental of? Nothing. She had nothing on him. She posed no threat; the world didn't work under a system of frivolous death matches. She was so caught up in the moment that she couldn't even hear his thoughts, but she thought she knew exactly what he was thinking. _

Wow, she's garbage.

_She didn't understand anything about him! She probably had a nice, welcoming family to come home to every day; a normal one. She could probably walk around the Village, and no one would give a second thought about her. _Lucky, _he thought. She was so _lucky!

_"You know what?" He felt his face getting hot as he spat the words at her. _She… won't beat me like this… _but he'd tell her off now, help her to see him like only Brother Naruto could. _

I'm getting to him… finally… _She wouldn't stop there. This brat… she never had respect for people like this, and she didn't think she ever would. _

_"Why are you _bothering _yourself with the likes of _us_, your _highness_?" Naruto couldn't believe her- he knew that, if _he _was in that position, he'd be doing the same thing… but he knew how much Konohamaru must've hated this. He saw it. _

_"Stop-"_

_"Why don't you go get a _manicure _and get the hell out of my way?" He couldn't believe… not once in his life had he ever… he _hated _her. From the bottom of his gut, he _hated _her. He could've wished her _dead _right there- how did she _know _him? It was like she knew exactly what to say that would get to him the most. _

_"_Bi_-" He started. _

_"I'm sorry, am I keeping you too long? Got some _autographs _to sign? Got people to see? A _life_? Well, you can just shove it right up your _ass_, _honorable grandson_."_

_That did it. _

_"That's _it! _You asked for it now!" His voice broke in the middle of his sentence, but he shoved his hand into her stomach before she could even see what he was doing. He pushed her away with the most shocking ease, and she fell to the ground in a second. _

_"Humph," he chuckled. "Not so tough now, are ya?" She skid across the floor, landing right beside Brother Naruto's leg, and he flexed his muscles proudly. "I'll beat you to a _pulp _once I'm done with Brother Naruto!" At this, both of them raised their eyebrows. Naruto, who had been glaring warily at both of them, sighed in relief as a smile spread across his face. Konohamaru took his messy stance, noticed Chiasa scowl at it, and stopped to stare at his role model. _

_"Konohamaru… I hate to break it to you, but…"He was still smiling, holding something shiny on his forehead. "We don't have time today."_

_When Konohamaru saw it, his jaw dropped. There, glinting in the sun for everyone to see, was a forehead protector. He glanced at Chiasa quickly, and noticed the same, more shadier thing wrapped around her neck. _No way… _he'd never catch up at this rate!_

_"Get one of these, and I'll fight you. As of today, though…" the two of them exchanged proud glances, and for a short second, Konohamaru saw the bond between them. _

_"We're Ninja."_

SAKURA

I stared at my reflection for what felt like hours, brushing the skin on my forehead with my hand. _Does it make it… more noticeable? _Ugh, it was so _huge_! But still… I liked the way it let my hair fall and frame my face. This was the only mirror in my room, and I didn't know how trustworthy it was… but I looked like _a grown up_.

_That's right! _I laughed in my own face as my eyes snapped to the little red ribbon on the table. _I'm a Ninja now- I'm not a little girl anymore, no more stupid hair bows for _this _kunoichi! _I wondered if Ino wore _hers _like this. Around the top of her head, like a _real _headband or hair ribbon… it was supposed to be the most feminine way of doing it. _Would Sasuke… like that about me? _If I wore it on my forehead, It would just be an embarrassing disaster. That smooth, cool skin that I had been stroking earlier would be showing on both sides… my stupid _parents _didn't have huge foreheads, so… why _me_? What if Sasuke liked girls with _little _foreheads? I chuckled; well, it wasn't like _Chiasa Uzumaki _had much of a shot with _anyone_, so I didn't have to worry about the tiny frames…

"Sakura!" An annoying, superior voice broke my train of thought, and I balled my hand up into a fist, waiting. "Aren't you planning on leaving soon?" _Shanaro! _I could decide when to leave my_self_! I'd get there on time- why didn't she _get _that? I was a _grown, responsible woman_. I stared around my charming little room and sighed. _Of course… of course of course of course. _Hell… how long was she going to _treat _me like a little kid?!

"I was planning on doing that _now_, for your information!" I rolled my eyes and crossed my arms over my chest. For one last second, I met my reflection's eyes again.

_You're a kunoichi now. _I was calming myself down- I couldn't let anyone _see me_ while I was such a wreck… my heart stopped just _picturing _Sasuke's face. _But I can finally show him that I deserve him… because…_ _I'm a kunoichi now. _

_That's right… _I hadn't really thought about it before, but… my footsteps echoed around the Village streets as the world woke up, and the sales people were smiling as they were making the day's first deals. _I'm not an… academy student anymore. _Who _knew _what was going to happen now? No one besides Iruka Sensei, probably- but the antici_pation _was _killing _me! Maybe they'd assign us life _partners_… what if mine was _Sasuke? _I felt the blood under my skin rush up to my cheeks as a spring decorated my step.

"We're off!" An obnoxiously flirtatious voice in the distance called out, stinging my ear drums as it projected itself. My eyes snapped up to a short, cute little yellow building- two stories, with unrealistically colored sunflowers plastered across the walls, and two tall,unfairly gorgeous blonde girls walked out.

One of them, the green eyed one, caught my eye, and I puckered my lips and turned my gaze away. I knew it was too late, of course, because they had already seen me looking, but… I couldn't lose to her. I wouldn't now; not anymore.

"Ino," she mouthed, hitting her cousin's shoulder. Ino spun around to her tiredly, but with a vigorous smile on her face. God, I knew that look… Shizuka pointed at me, and the blue eyed one turned to face me.

Her smile nearly faltered at my gulp.

_There's no use hiding it now_. I was looking; it was a fact. How could I _not _look at the two of them? Ino hated my guts almost as much as I resented hers- Shizuka didn't really care much about anyone, but they were both still so… _intimidating. _So different, yet so alike…

Ino's black eyeliner was brought out by the purple in her half-shirt and mini skirt, and a long, noticeable strand of hair came up and fell down like a waterfall in front of her face. She was clearly the more striking of the two- Shizuka was definitely prettier if you could see her next to _that_, but Ino was undoubtedly… bandages wrapped so tightly around her body that she looked like a stick- that was what she was going for, of course, but…

Shizuka was much more natural looking. She let her hair fall down to the middle of her back, much before Ino's pony tail, and she didn't wear any make-up; she didn't have to. Her dress was like mine, but a deep green, the _perfect _touch despite the gloomy eyes that always painted themselves on her face…

"'Morning,_ Sakura_!" Ino smirked at me, and the muscles in my arms tensed up- I jumped. Hadn't I stopped back there? Had I let myself walk too close to them? _Idiot! _I kept a straight face- she couldn't know I was surprised- and I let my arms ease out. She was still waiting intently, and I could barely feel Shizuka's grim gaze on the two of us.

"'Morning, Ino… Shizuka." I let the sneer spread across my face. _That _bitch! She _knew _I couldn't stand her enthusiasm- she was taking advantage my weakness, she…! How could she call herself a Kunoichi? What with her headband around the waste… everyone knew what _that _meant… it meant she thought she was _hot_. I rolled my eyes. I could be just as pretty as her if I wanted to be…! She had _no _shot with Sasuke! _None_!

"You're not going to walk with us, _are _you?" Shizuka wasn't trying to be rude, but her voice dragged. She just didn't want to watch Ino and I brawl again, and a part of me didn't really want to do this in front of an innocent, either… but Shizuka's voice was just a single note the whole way through her sentence, her eyes looked dead… and the three of us walked side-by-side, regardless of what she wanted. This was too important to let go of, after all; this was the fight of the century!

Ino and I walked through the Village together while Shizuka trailed idly behind, and the Academy was probably just another ten minutes away. _Mature people… Ino hates mature people…! I _wouldn't be the first to break away… I couldn't be _weaker _than her! I had to beat her, even at this… Sasuke deserved the best, and if I wasn't the best, then… then…! I gulped.

"So, _Sakura-chan_," I bit my lip when she added the affectionate, old timely suffix at the end of my name. _Why the hell… _she was ugly Ino-pig. That was it- if I was _Sakura-chan, _she was ugly Ino-pig. I'd show _her_… "Who'd of thought _you'd _graduate the academy?" I raised an eyebrow.

_I'm smarter than you, Sasuke likes me better than you, and I'm just a better Kunoichi than you. Let's _face _it_. I couldn't say that, though… I had to come up with something better, something she'd _hate_… _Hah! _

_Maturity_, I reminded myself. Ino couldn't stand it when I was the bigger person… _perfect_.

"I don't care what happened before, Ino." Her smile faltered; this was _mine_. "We're both Ninja now." She stared at me for a long moment as I looked ahead, and finally, I couldn't take it anymore. I had to tell her this, and I had to do it _now_. Today meant things would be different. They'd be better. I could feel it. "I won't lose to you anymore." I shoved my heel in the dirt and pushed myself a step forward, letting her fall behind with Shizuka.

"Hah! Yeah," she was practically spitting the words at me, but I didn't cringe; I was _so_ over that."Good luck with that one, _Billboard Brow_."

She threw herself a step in front of me, and the race began.

CHIASA

"It's time! Chiasa! Chiasa! We're going to be Ninja in ten freaking minutes. Believe it!" I hated it when Naruto jumped- it made him taller than me. There were butterflies in my stomach at that moment, though- I got this horrible, ominously drastic feeling like something was going to go wrong, like our little, mini adventure wasn't over yet, and I wiped the sweat off the back of my neck.

_This… doesn't feel good_. I went over what was supposed to happen in my head- I had mapped out this day a thousand times in sheer anticipation, and yet… why hadn't I ever felt such a final, defined apprehension?

"Y-Yeah…" Iruka Sensei's classroom was coming up too quickly- I could _see _it from here. Had we ever been early before? Maybe on the first day- but then, after that, it was only me when I was lucky. I forced a weak smile for him as the bastards swarmed the billboard by the door, and I tried not to recognize any of them when we got close enough to go in. I didn't need their hate anymore- I didn't need to look at them, and now, they had nothing to do with me.

_No more stares… please, no more stares…_

"Wanna look at the list?" My eyes darted over to him as I laced my hands together, needing to squeeze something. Honestly, I didn't_ want _to know my rank in the class- it wasn't like I needed anything _else _to take a shit on my self-esteem- but I had to see what it said. That would show me where everyone else stood, who to watch out for, who was an easy target…

As of today, it was every man for himself.

When he didn't answer, my heart clenched and I spun around trying to find him. He wasn't next to me- the countless number of kids flooded the hall in front and behind me, so I probably wouldn't be able to see him even if he _was_… but I could pick out those thoughts from a mile away. He was already in the classroom, trying to contain his excitement as he sat at our desk, wondering why it was so empty. _He already forgot about it… _that made it easier, at least; I wouldn't have to humiliate myself in front of him.

I sighed; maybe it was better like this. Maybe he was low, and that would _kill_ him- I knew _I_ had to see, because I needed to know if I'd be a target… but he'd be fine. No one here could stand a chance against Naruto, if he really tried. I was sure of it. I knew him so _well_… the boy could train hardcore for ten hours straight and still have energy left for Ichiraku.

I managed to fight my way through my classmates by slithering around the tall, skinny ones, and forced my way to the wall. Their eyes penetrated me for just a second before darting back to their fate in front of them, but I tried my best to ignore it. They always stared at me for a second- they couldn't help themselves. I was _that one_. I was forbidden- so what was I doing so close to them?

I squeezed my teeth and shook my head.

_Now is not the time. _

Staring at the piece of parchment, I leapt from name to name. I had to read as fast as my heart beat sometimes- otherwise, the anticipation would kill me.

"That's _it?_" His voice roared in my ear- I knew he wasn't actually complaining; he was just being an arrogant bastard. I looked for Kiba Inuzuka's number, skimming the entire thing from top to bottom before my eyes finally landed on it.

_Four_.

I heaved a grunt. Was that bitch really even _pretending_ to complain about being rookie _four_? That meant that he could beat up _four fifths _of the entire _class_. I didn't even want to turn around to _look _at him- he was the haughty one, the jockey one. I wrinkled my nose whenever he came _close _to me. And he… was horrible to Naruto.

"Hmm… but Shikamaru… at least your number has one _digit_…" A lighter, kinder voice trailed off. This time, I actually _did _look to see who it was. My gaze landed on a bag of chips, holding a thick, meaty hand that hungrily grabbed at the bottom.

I didn't _need _to look up at his big, puffy face- it was so _obviously_ Choji. I knew he was standing next to Shikamaru and squinting at the sheet of paper like he needed a microscope. Moaning, a triple chin popped out when his face fell.

"Who _gives_ a damn?" I looked at the list to find Choji's number while his best friend complained- the two of them, unlikely as they were, were _inseparable. _I actually almost _liked _Choji, when I omitted Shikamaru. He was really a decent person, but no one would give him the time of day… I almost felt sorry for him, because my understanding could embrace that so well. "This is so _bothersome_…"

Shikamaru, on the other hand, was a lazy idiot. He let out a yawn, turning away, and beckoned the poor, depressed number Nineteen behind him.

I turned to the list again. _Is he… just putting on an act? _There's no way… Shikamaru had somehow managed to pull an impressive number six, which clearly didn't affect his composure in any way, shape, or form… but was he really that dangerous? He'd never stood out before…

Obviously, the first name that caught my eye was the number _one _rookie, immediately ending my mild worries about Shikamaru- it was Sasuke, of course. I sighed, skimming the list down, trying to pick out names I knew. I looked near the bottom of it for _my _name the most, trying to hope for at _least _seventeen, but I was nowhere to be seen.

_Twenty_? My head spun as a tingling sensation erupted behind my ear. I held my hand to it involuntarily, trying to silence it as I forced my eyes from the bottom. _Calm down, Chiasa… Let's just go down the list- I can't be… I… _There was this rumor that went around that the number twenties in each class were always the first ones to get killed off… and if I…

_No. _ _First is Sasuke… second… is… _the hushed crowed hit me a second too late.

Actually, it hit me right after she did.

"Ah!" I wasn't facing whatever mix of mushy fat and stony muscle decided to trample me over, but it didn't matter who was pushing me at that moment. Every time I tried stumbling forward to regain my balance, her unrealistically strong frame came back and pushed me forward again. _This bitch… I'm not going to give this to her! I'm not… I'm not…!_

"S-stop…. S-stop…" Was all I had as they roared, laughing until they couldn't contain themselves at all. Some of them, I knew, the better ones… were shifting their gazes away from me. They couldn't look at what they knew they were supposed to be liking.

Well.

"I…!" A cough caught in my throat, hardening and broadcasting itself as the nearly-metal wooden walls attacked me from the front. Did I dare close my eyes? Could I really… die here? _Don't stop beating again, you fucking heart…. _

"Number two, huh…" Her voice was velvety, gentle behind its stoic, relative deepness, and I felt myself gasp at the edge of her bosom as my head snapped around, and my wide, open eye met her scars.

Two pink gashes ran along her left, printing a permanent scowl on her face, but it didn't watch me. There was no denying who she was, or if she could handle her rank here. She was tall, serious… beautiful, even… with caramel skin and high cheek bones, letting her shimmering light brown hair flow out behind her back.

I had nothing to say to Amaya Nara that day.

By the time she pulled away, I nearly sank to the floor- it wasn't so much that she'd been crushing me, but her _chakra_… it was so dark, so twisted… it was so drenched in hurt and agony all covered up in a scarred grimace…

Like mine.

"B-bitch…" She kept away, not even aware of what she'd done, when all of the other kids slowly lost interest. They'd all done it to me at least once, after all; when I was seven, just starting my main academy studies, I was nearly two-foot nine. Though it wasn't on purpose most of the time, I… The mere thought through washed me, and it wasn't even five seconds before the next freak came marching in, and my knees finally gave way.

Something warm and lively stopped my back before I fell over, and I caught my breath before I lifted my head up to look at him. Everyone was silent- that must've been the tingling under my ears, and I'd just been too dumb to notice. They were all shifting uneasily at the sight of Amaya leaving the room while I stared into a pair of beet black eyes through shady sun-glasses.

_Shino Aburame- _My eyes bulged, and I wanted to shriek again. He must've been at _least _five foot six. That was almost an entire _foot_… I gulped. I couldn't take _him… _If I had seen the rankings correctly, he was number three, too. And he'd… caught me? Or did I fall on him? And why did my elbow, which now searched to sturdy itself in his ribs… feel so warm and lively? _Don't apologize. _Sometimes, like at that moment, I wasn't even sure if the kid was _human_- after all, the collar on his lab coat was so high that no one actually knew what his _face _looked like.

But then, I was probably less human than he was.

As soon as I reoriented myself and put distance between myself and his sticky heat and stirring skin, the next encroaching annoyance dawned upon me with concern melting the solid lavender eyes in her face. "Oh-!" She gasped when I turned to meet her gaze. Of course, being nearly as cowardly as _I_ was, Hinata Hyuga's caring worry dashed to the wall behind me as her cheeks flushed, and she suddenly seemed very in to what she was looking at.

_Not her… God, not her… _She was insufferable on a completely different level than anyone in the entire room. Out of everyone who'd ever beaten me, watched me, tried to kill me, laughed at me… she didn't. Not once. She was just… so _nice_. What was I supposed to do with _that_? What _could _I do? Suddenly, her shaky eyes swelled.

_Chiasa-san is…! _San… this was exactly what I'd meant. But… did she see my number? Had she flattered me in her mind? I spun to search again.

_Sasuke is one… Amaya is two… Shino is three… _Kiba was four, and… I looked to see who the next one was- who the one to complete the top five would be. It was probably someone like Hibachi- someone annoying, a little strong, someone who could surpass the rest of them despite that…

My heart stopped.

_That's-! _My head was spinning- I might've backed up into Shino again, I don't know. No one was watching me because I was too easy to miss, but I knew they knew. They had to. No sensible person would see _that _and think nothing of it… my lips were white, I could feel it. But what was this… this _pleasure_ cultivating inside me? Was I _pleased _with myself? Or… was Yang?

"Five…" I mouthed the word as the thoughts around me overtook my brain, clouding my vision with their diversity. This was _not possible_. This was… this was a mistake. There was no other way besides that.

"Chiasa Uzumaki." What would this make me? Was I feared, now, or was I a target? I closed my eyes, leaning my hand against the wall, and let my head snap down to face the floor. There was, besides speed, one perk about being me. If I wanted to know what to be careful for from the people around me…

I could find out.

Of course, their attentions turned to me slowly, what with my position, and I could hear them looking up at the wall, feel their shock as they processed what they were seeing.

Her_…? _Kiba's brow was furrowed as he watched my hunched over body, trying to see my face through the curls draped across my cheeks. _She can't even stand making a _transformation_! At least _I _beat her… but by _one_ fucking number_? _She… isn't that strong…!_ _And those three fucking bastards… _His sharp, heating thoughts drifted to other things as he looked away, deciding it was time to rant about someone else. No one else seemed to be thinking about me at that point.

_Ten…_ after the room had finally almost cleared out, Hinata's overly subtle thoughts became audible again. Examining her impressive number, she crossed her arms over her chest, backed up towards the wall, and thought about the distance she was wedging between herself and Shino and I. He was the only other, so it was more than quiet enough. Hinata's thoughts were soft, breathier than her real voice, even… but they were almost _calming_, in a way. Definitely easy enough to hear. I unclenched myself a bit, taking my head off the wall. _That's not… bad… _they were disappointed- even when I wasn't looking, I knew her face fell.

Why was she…. so _soft_…? She was just shy and lighthearted- she didn't mess with anyone… I watched her when the class had paired up to practice fighting as beginners. She just _stood _there while her opponent beat the shit out of her, and she was okay with it… _I _had even fought her a few times. It was the most pathetic thing you'd ever see, really… Hinata wouldn't hit me, and when I tried hitting her, (trying to convince myself that I hated her), absolutely _nothing _happened.

She eventually won in the end, because I keeled over after throwing about ten punches.

_But Naruto-kun is… why is he on the list? _I spun around at his name- I had forgotten about that. She was always thinking about him… Whenever I could hear her tiny, passive thoughts, Naruto was the only thing on her mind. She even added the suffix at the end, to show_ politeness_… I'd never understand. Her thoughts were weirdly contented as she focused on the back of _my _head, too… I felt my shoulders go stiff.

_At least Chiasa-san is number 5. Good for her. _I whirled around, dumbstruck, and looked her right in her pupil-less, lavender eyes.

_Oh. That's right… _Being around Hinata always made me so… _uncomfortable_. Her thoughts were always so selfless. Even towards _me_. Her lips parted as she froze in her place, and she pulled her arms sharply to her sides, horrified.

I could barely hear Shino breathing.

My ears were probably as red as her face, and for a while, we just stared at each other. I didn't think anyone could _be _like her, that was all. How could such a constantly picked on person like her… even _start _to smile here?

Today was just _full _of interesting people, wasn't it?

_Can… can she…? _She couldn't even think the words as she took a little step back. Shit- I'd forgotten that, too. No one knew about my fun little "ability" besides Naruto, and I couldn't afford to let anyone see it.

_Especially _not now.

I peeled my confusion away from her shock and started to move towards the door of the classroom, letting the creepy, crawly chills that Shino's presence was giving me roll off my skin as I waked through the doorway.

_Everyone is an enemy now; no one's going to stay home and play Ninja anymore_. This was the real deal; this was life or death. This… this was…

This was the beginning of the end.

Naruto was leaning his head down on his wrists, smiling in anticipation. He'd been sitting in the exact same position for almost ten minutes, and I was just starting to worry when the problem started.

When I had walked into the classroom, the individual two-seat desks were pushed together to make groups of four. It didn't make a difference to me, but… Sasuke was sitting just two seats away from Naruto, glaring at the floor without making himself noticeable.

I didn't really know what to make of _anyone _at that point, but Hinata's watchful eyes following our movements from behind kept my attention on her. Why did she… _care _about us? She wasn't watching because we were different. She was just watching. Did she know about Kyuubi and Yang? That we were siblings? Orphans? That was common knowledge… so why in the world would she…?

And then there was... Shino. Something about him bothered me besides the obvious. No one stared at him; I hardly ever noticed when he was here or not. But… we were so _similar. _I remembered my elbow jabbing his ribs and grabbed it impulsively. What was… _moving _in there? I shivered just thinking about it. He was more alive than I thought… I always knew he was creepy, but I had never felt anything _like_ that before. His skin was cold and alive and… I swallowed. I knew that must've been how he got to Number Three, but what _was_ it?

"What the-?" A bored, hardly curious voice sounded next to my ear, straightening my back and snapping my eyes to his face. There, slouched with a green jacket and a headband around his upper left arm to show simplicity, stood Shikamaru. "Why are _you _here?" My face burnt as he stared past me, and I clutched the bottom of the desk as he raised his eyebrow at my brother.

"I thought you failed." Naruto slammed his hands on the desk and glared at him challengingly. He lowered his brow, and sighed.

"I _didn't_!" He pointed to his headband with his thumb, and I had to look away. Shikamaru Nara… was _not _supposed to ask questions. Half of me wondered if his dreary disposition _was_ all an act, and he actually _did _care. The other half of me seemed to know the kid well enough to forget it. "Do you see _this _Shikamaru? Huh? Do yah? That's _right_! I graduated _too_!" I decided to tune them out before I confused myself any more, so I decided to venture back to my other problems with other people.

_So Naruto-kun… really _did _graduate_... At first, I didn't know how to react, so I just stopped moving. I couldn't turn around and look at Hinata for a _second _time, because then she'd _know _what I could do… but with a loud moan, I finally let my body go limp. Why was she so confusing? Not just her, but _everyone_- how was I able to read minds and still not know one _thing _about a person?

…_Thank goodness. _

My eyes bulged. _What_? Thank _goodness_? What business did _she _have being _thankful_? I was so caught up trying to understand her logic that I didn't even hear Shikamaru calm Naruto down and walk around to sit behind me. Another sound entered my subconscious, not even registering until its aftermath.

Sasuke arrogantly chuckled without revealing his expression, and Naruto went livid.

NARUTO

I watched him as he looked away from us with my nostrils flared.

He was staring at me-! No… wait… he _wasn't_. Dammit! What the hell would it take for the guy to realize that I was staring him down? Why couldn't he just get _aggravated_, at least_? _

What _was _it with him?! Did he think he was cool, leaning his too-good mouth into his hands like that? Did he honestly think he was better than me, just because Sakura… Why did he just _chuckle_? He didn't think I had what it took? _Sasuke, you bastard! Look next to you, fucking… loser ass son of a _bitch_! _His lower left eyelid twitched, and I jumped.

Sasuke Uchiha was the most _annoying _person in the entire _Leaf Village_. I was sure that, if I knew everyone in the entire world, he'd qualify for _that _title, too. All he did was walk around with a bunch of girls on his tail, kicking everyone's asses in everything because he was too… too _Sasuke _to just leave people alone.

Now he was sitting two seats away from me, and I wanted to stab someone.

"Just ignore him," Chiasa's voice was distant as she rolled her eyes and sat slumped down in the chair next to me. She looked a little pale and dazed, but I'd learned not to ask long before that point. "You know he _wants_ you to feel like shit, right?."

She was such a fucking hypocrite sometimes.

I let my body fall back, using the fabric of my orange jumpsuit to slide down the chair, and folded my arms to imitate her position. "Come on," I whispered to her, trying to keep quiet so that he couldn't hear me. "Don't feed me that bullshit. You hate him _too_."

His eyes darted over to us, and the chair flipped back behind me.

"_Son of a_…!" The only thing I learned that day was that tile hurts like a bitch. Falling straight through the air, I stared straight into Sasuke's snooty eye, and just _gaped_. Who did he think he _was_? I remembered the first time we met… how he'd creamed me at clone Jutsu when I could hardly make a single one.

The rest was history.

_That's it… _this was my specialty- Baka-suke could kick my ass at Ninjutsu and Taijutsu all he wanted, but he did _not _know how to get someone like Naruto Uzumaki; no one did. So, right there, I decided it- and when I decided things like this, they were _final. Sasuke… I don't know how or where, but I am going to _get _you. I am going to get you _today_. _

_Splat_!

"FIRST!" Two girly, high pitched voices bounced around the room, ambushing me from twenty yards away. My heart fluttered as I recognized them by the door, and a smile spread across my face- _Sakura… that's it! That's how… _This was just too perfect.

I pushed myself up, latching my hand onto the desk behind ours for support, and stared straight at the two of them.

The first one that I noticed was obviously Sakura, and the blood ran through my face. Her flowing pink hair was all messed up as she panted, wiping the sweat off of her perfectly oversized forehead. She held out her arms in front of her like she was going to hug someone, and let one of them fall in front of Ino Yamanaka's chest.

Ino did the same thing, except she wasn't as pretty when she did it. The long strand of blonde hair that she let fall over her eye swiveled around with her head as she and Sakura glared at each other evilly.

"I'm first _again_, _Billboard brow_!" She sneered, looking down into Sakura's eyes.

Sakura returned the smile.

"In your _dreams_, Ino-pig! My toenail was at _least _one millimeter in front of yours this time!" She was going to see me- I was blushing, I could feel it, but she was going to _look _at me! Today would be the day- I even had the headband to prove it!

_Take some deep breaths… _I had to be cool when I went about this, otherwise I'd make an idiot of myself- and, I mean, why _wouldn't _it work? "Ignorant bastard" worked for _Sasuke_, so why shouldn't it work for _me_?

Right then, though, she piped up and turned around, letting her long hair whip across her face. Her eyes gently scanned the tables, and I felt myself getting lost in her brilliant, piercing gaze…

Until her eyes stopped on me.

"Oh!" I promise you, she was watching me and copying my rosy face- Ino was still glaring at the back of her head, but she was finally seeing me as the badass, adult, full-fledged Ninja that I was always meant to be. This really _was _the day…! I _knew _it!

_Sakura's… staring at me… _I thought I noticed Chiasa cringe in my peripheral vision, but that didn't matter right now- the only thing I cared about was Sakura, with her eyes burning a hole in my face.

_Say something, idiot! _My heart caught in my throat, but I knew I had to do something. My head spun as I remembered I was already standing, and I raised my hand in the air to wave her over. There was an open seat next to me, so… it was perfect! She could sit right there, and… _No! Remember, cool… _cool_…_

She started running towards me as a warm smile spread across her face, and I ran out into the isle to greet her. She _wanted _me… _Me_! After all this time… finally, the day I was recognized…

"Hey, _Sakura_!" Ino groaned.

I could only imagine what it'd be like when I became Hokage.

Too soon, I could almost feel the smooth texture of her skin on mine. _Wait for it… _I had to say something to make myself look like a total badass… not the dip-shit that everyone already saw me for, but…

"Good morning, Sakura! Why don't-" Her hand was on my waist in a second, and my heart fluttered. Chiasa covered her face, and for a short moment, I had no idea what was going through her head.

"Get _out _of my _way_!" Her high-pitched, sweet-tinted voice morphed into a raging growl, and delicate little Sakura thrust me out of her face with one swift push.

What I had pictured was going to happen, I might never know. I couldn't _believe_ I actually let those fucking thoughts go through my _head_. As I fell, watching her smile get farther and farther away from me, the only thing that I could possibly think- _of course- _was…

_I guess… I'm no… Sasuke. _

I was so… going to rip him apart.

CHIASA

I couldn't even think when Naruto went down. Sakura had this habit of just… _drowning _me with her presence, and I couldn't do anything besides claw at the bottom of my chair, clench my jaw, and stare forward without letting her thoughts intoxicate me. She was… shallow, annoying, possessive, and so narrow-minded that reading her thoughts actually made me claustrophobic.

"G-good morning Sasuke!" She laced her fingers together, blushing like hell. I sighed, leaned back in my chair, and tried not to focus on the fact that a Sasuke-mob was about to wreak havoc right next to my face.

Carefully, I let my eyes dart over to take his reaction. Might as well entertain myself, right?

He stared forward darkly, not moving a muscle for a whole ten seconds before he finally looked at her questioningly. His gleam spat out exactly what he was thinking, too- _what the hell do you want from me? _That was his general attitude towards everything, so she didn't seem to notice that they were directed at her.

Of course, that would only encourage her.

"M-mind if I sit next to you?" I raised my eyebrows. _No… no. Absolutely not. Don't you fucking dare… _There were exactly two seats between me and Sasuke. I would _not _be able to sit through that mind-altering, perfume-scented proximity. No way in hell…

"I mind…" I muttered, unfortunately missing her hearing range.

I knew she was there before I turned my head- no one set my teeth on edge quite like this. Of course, there were the flashes of her purple top and lively blue eyes, but I never needed anything more than my intuition to know when she was around me.

"Don't even _think _about it. _I'm _sitting next to Sasuke!" She grabbed Sakura's arm, and the two stared each other down. I felt the impossible impulse to pick up my legs and drape them across the two chairs, but I just pushed my legs together, since they didn't stretch that far in the first place.

_Wait for it… _

No one pissed my off _quite _like Ino managed to, but it was still too early to tell what the rest of the day would look like. Pursing my lips, I waited for the herd of girls to start swarming around the two of them.

"First come, first served, bitch!" Sakura yanked her elbow away and kept glaring. Ino raised her eyebrows, ready to launch a counter attack as Sasuke sighed and looked away.

"I was in the classroom_ first_!"

"You guys are so _stupid_." Someone else chimed in. "_I _was here before _both of you_." I folded my arms on my desk and rested my chin in the hole that they made.

Today was going to be a long day.

"If you wanna play that game, I was here before _all _of you!" I peered over at Sasuke, and he just shook his head at the air.

_This… is so… _I chuckled at his thought, looking away from him. That was that arrogant bastard for you. _How predictable_… I smiled.

_…Annoying. _

Before I could even begin to try and stop him, kicking myself for getting lost in a daze again, Naruto got up.

NARUTO

Our noses almost touched… and he better have fucking liked it.

There I was, squatting like an idiot in front of Sakura-chan herself, leaning into this cocky bitch's face. For what? He glared right back at me, narrowing his eyes, radiating this pure, subzero hatred of all things. I could feel it zapping between us.

He was probably laughing on the inside. I was funny to him, wasn't I? Pathetic little _Naruto_- that annoying little kid who wished he was good enough to _touch _the God known as _Sasuke Uchiha_. Well, soon, _I _would be the one laughing. He didn't know… he didn't know what was coming for him…

"_Naruto_!" Her voice was high again, and the way my name sounded on her lips made my heart skip beats. She'd still like me- today was still my day, even if… "_Stop glaring at Sasuke!"_

And it all came crashing down.

I snapped my head over to cower against her defensive stare, and felt this giant wall between the two of us. Sometimes, it was Chiasa- sometimes I stopped myself from trying to talk to her because Chiasa was at the top of her Sakura-hating cycle. But usually… usually it was like today.

Sasuke.

_God dammit! _I turned back to him, staring at those stupid balls of coal in his face. Where would I be without him? How much better off would _all _of these people be if Sasuke was just… what if he was just a Genin already? I'd have Sakura in the bag- I'd have all of them.

_What the hell are you, you jerk?! So_ swift, _so_ talented_, _so _ignorant_… way too good for Naruto Uzumaki- even more so than anyone else. Well, I'd give it back to him… everything had already fallen into place.

"Beat him up, Sasuke!" _Ignore her. _Sakura would see later- I'd show her, too.

"Yeah, hurry up already! I want to sit next to you!" _Ino doesn't know what she's talking about. _

I was actually blowing them off pretty well until something shoved at my _butt_- at first, I didn't really notice it, but there was so much force that I was literally thrown forward.

"Hey, is Iruka Sensei-" Some kid stood up behind me, knocking into me as he jolted up into the air. At that point, I could honestly care less. Even still, when I started falling straight towards Sasuke's face, everyone in the whole fucking room gasped a little.

If you're thinking what they were thinking, you're right.

CHIASA

Oh, God… I couldn't watch. The kid who'd hit Naruto was honestly sorry- he had a friendly disposition, he was pretty tan, relatively tall, and he always had a smile on his face. There was nothing fishy about him, so when his eyebrows rose in alarm and his jittery giddiness slid off his face, it wasn't very hard to believe his apology.

"Oh, shit, man! I'm really sor-" The whole room was quiet, though, and when he realized what was happening, he started gawking at them too.

"Here we go…" I moaned, burying my face in my palms. A part of me wished that Naruto had just tackled Sasuke to the floor like I had, but it was too late for that. Two pairs of dying, sour thoughts ambushed mine from two different directions, and they swirled around in my brain until the muscles in my head cramped.

Not to mention my initial "_it's over _" feeling when the two of them locked lips.

But… there was more _to _it than that. Something was biting at me, prickling the little hairs on my arms and speeding my heart up as the two of them- so entirely opposite looking in every single way, pressed their lips against each other to enhance the contrast. Was it that nauseous pit in my stomach again? No… I was sweating. _What… _

A loud, appalled scream hit me like a slap across the face, but that feeling still lingered as I tried abandoning it.

"_NARUTO!" _Was it Sakura? I didn't really and Sasuke grabbed each other by the throats and pushed away, coughing, but even as they did that, sticking out their tongues and mentally killing each other, I couldn't shake that _feeling_.

It was the same one, no doubt. The one that had rushed through me like an adrenaline jolt two days ago, the one that had transferred through Yin and Yang in my dream… and Yang and I. What did I call it, again?

_Fate_.

This was way stronger than anything I've ever experienced before, though! This was… My skin drew to my bones, squeezing me until my eyes popped out. I laced my fingers together on the desk top, squeezed them, and let my head fall.

Naruto and Sasuke… what could they possibly…? After this, I was sure they'd have nothing to do with each other, but… was I wrong? Would they be linked, somehow, even though they hated each other?

Could that be why the fate had radiated between Sasuke and _me_? Naruto and Sasuke, who obviously had the dominant bond… if Naruto was linked to Sasuke, I'd probably be linked to Sasuke, too, just not as strongly.

That made sense, didn't it?

"My mouth… is rotting…" Naruto breathed between gasps. The silence in the room pressed on, and the sweat was just braking out across my neck when Sakura put an end to it. I could feel her glare even though the fate blinded me, and my spine still jolted upright when she spoke.

"_Naruto…_" That was what I hated about her. She spoke to him just like everyone else spoke to him- like he was trash, stupid, and nothing. Heat boiled through my veins, and my irregular heart beats started to subside- could I stand up to them? Probably not. But I'd forsake that, right? I wasn't the most astute person, but I could judge myself pretty well… couldn't I?

A million thoughts surged through my head, and I sorted them all at once.

_I... was supposed to be Sasuke's first kiss…! _Sakura's thoughts practically growled, echoed by nearly everyone's around her.

_I feel… a lot of… Oh, fuck. _Naruto's eyes were wide as he inched away from them, and his petrified gaze snapped between their intensifying kncuckle-cracks.

_My throat is… on fire. Annoying little… _Sasuke looked like he wanted to combust.

I was so caught up in the heat of the moment and everything happening around me that I didn't even notice her silent, solemn footsteps as they walked in the classroom and soundlessly shut the door behind her.

When she sighed and her thoughts rested on my face, though, I knew she was here. That was her morning ritual, after all- wasn't it?

_Looks like _someone _hasn't changed… _The thoughts on the inside of her mind were loud, drenched in sarcasm, and full of that pure, indifferent coolness. In her mind, I was crouched up, bending my knees as my toes supported me on the chair. I looked like I was ready to pounce. Tears formed at the bases of my eyes as guilt ate a hole through my chest, and I dropped every muscle I owned to stare away from her.

_Oh, Shizuka… _Why did I need… this pain? I couldn't look into her eyes. Not again.

_Monster… stay away from me! I don't ever want you near me- I don't ever want to see your face! _The words were as old as her cruelty- what was it now, seven years? They bloomed on that fateful day… The day that my life changed forever. She didn't know, of course, how monstrous I really was… she couldn't know.

But she was right on the dot.

As a distant, familiarly warm voice filled the air, Shizuka Yamanaka looked away from me and walked to sit next to her reluctantly Sasuke-deprived cousin. As Sakura brushed passed me to sit in between Naruto and Sasuke, I could only watch her. Her twisted features killed most of it, but deep down… I knew it was still there…

Shikamaru and Ino sat side by side behind us, and Shizuka's thoughts lingered from three feet away. Before I could really listen in and watch her mentally kill me again, a light voice cleared its throat from the front of the room, and all eyes turned toward him.

"Alright, everyone." Iruka Sensei called out to us with a triumphant, wistful smile on his face. "As of today… you're all Genin."

NARUTO

_She was sitting next to me! _Sure, she was sitting next to Sasuke too, but… this _proved _it! She had to like me- who sat next to someone they didn't like? I was bouncing in my seat, trying to hold my laughter down while Iruka Sensei cleared his throat again.

I knew today would be my day; Sakura didn't even hit me- not once! Chiasa might've grabbed my wrist hurriedly and pulled me into the seat next to her before they could get to me, but that didn't change the fact that they let her do it!

"I've been you're teacher for five years," a smile spread across his face, and my eyelids started to drop.

Before I dozed off, I thought I saw his happy eyes dart to my face as his student one last time.

CHIASA

_Were those eyes_…? my heart started to melt, and he totally wiped Shizuka, number five, and Yang from my mind. It was a little hard to listen to his speech with all of the apprehension in the air, but I tried to lean forward and make out what he was saying as his meaningful gaze held on my brother's sleeping face.

They were what I'd always imagined them to be like… for the first time in my life, someone other than Naruto was letting the corners of my lips turn up, and it didn't even matter what he was saying anymore. How could I have ever been afraid of such a warm, real sound? Iruka Sensei's was a little bit higher than most, but it still reverberated around the room and held me up.

_These are a father's eyes. _I thought I was going to cry… I'd never seen anything like them before. He stood at his podium with confidence, looking like he truly loved us, like he was really, truly proud of us.

"It only gets harder from here… but you won't be alone." I raised an eyebrow at that, and the warm feeling slowly subsided. Not alone? What was he talking about? Of _course _we would be alone! "_Shinobi" _was practically synonymous with the word! As of today, we were all being thrust into a competition of survival of the fittest- we were signing up for a constant war called life and death. We knew that, so what could he _possibly _be trying to…

I heard his thoughts before anyone else even caught a glimpse of what he was going to say, and my lips turned white.

_That_?! _That _was the secret that no one was allowed to tell us? My head started spinning, and I had to lean back in my chair to steady myself.

There was no rationality in this.

I… of all things, _this_… This was the one thing that would kill me; I knew it. I let my head fall back as I closed my eyes, and the ceiling lights dyed my eyelids red as my body went numb.

_Damn… _I must've looked like a mess- even Naruto was waking up to stare questioningly at me. For a second, I forgot how to breathe, so I held my breath as I shook my head at him. Bringing my face up, though, so I could see him, I nodded in Iruka Sensei's direction. I couldn't say this… not… not _this_.

Naruto blinked sleepily, and he turned his attention to Iruka Sensei, who was- unfortunately- at the end of his speech.

"In every Ninja Body, there's a tradition that's older than the first Kage." He let that sink in, and I had to keep myself from jumping on him. _Get on with it_! This was killing me. Who would it be? I wasn't okay with anyone… Maybe I'd survive Choji and Hinata, but they would make me feel insanely uncomfortable…

_This is only until you become a Chunin. _I had originally thought I'd be a Genin forever- I mean, I would never, not in a million years, want to become a Chunin. One of the Hokage's direct servants? _Never_. But now… If I ended up like Iruka Sensei, I'd be okay with it. Not all Chunin were bad, and- I glanced at Sasuke's bored, unsuspecting face- _not all Genin should be Genin_. People were naturally bad, that was true- but if certain people became good and moved up a level, I couldn't apply the same, biased stereotype to everyone.

_I'm weak… I'll probably be a Genin forever anyway. _I sighed, bracing myself.

"I have a list here of all of your names and faces, and the higher ups have hand-picked you to form your own, four-man squads. These teams will be your groups until you've advanced enough to make it on your own, and the four of you will train together and grow under an elite Jonin instructor. I know how anxious I must be making all of you…" He laughed and stared down at his paper thoughtfully, smiling with his eyes closed. _You have no idea_. I curled my fingertips into my palm and waited for him to say it.

Everyone in the room seemed to stop and stare wide-eyed at him, and Sakura and Ino were the only two who were thinking the same thing.

"I'm going to be on Sasuke's team, _naturally_." Ino leaned in from behind her and whispered it with a smirk on her face. _Hinata, Naruto, and Choji… come on… _If I was grouped with anyone else besides that… I didn't know how I'd survive.

Sakura turned around cantankerously.

"Maybe, maybe not." She hissed through clenched teeth. She wasn't _trying _to start anything, so I'd probably be better off with her, but…

No. Anyone but the two of them.

I'm _going to be the one grouped with Sasuke, you stupid, ugly pig! _Throughout all of this, Sasuke's irritation burned brighter than anything else in the room.

_Dammit… Three more... _He looked around at the class, not stopping on a face for more than a second. Luckily for me, I wasn't looking at him, so it was easier not to wrinkle my nose when it was my turn.

_Just… not her. _Shizuka's thoughts were a jumbled mess of anger as she glared at the back of my head. Blood rushed through her face, but I forced myself to sit still. No one noticed it, right? I'd just deal with it for however long I had to, because I_ did _have to.

"Team one…" My heart skipped a beat. There were two classes of graduates this year- each of them had twenty. So, in total, there would be ten teams of four Genin.

Within twenty names at most, my life would change forever.

Right as Iruka Sensei started mumbling names, incoherent to my mental apprehension, Shikamaru glanced sideways at Shizuka and followed her gaze to my curls. Even though I could feel his confusion and lack of motivation to really care, I couldn't hear his exact thoughts. With certain people, reading minds was like that; like trying to walk through a cluttered house in the dark. I could get in, but no matter where I turned, I ran right smack into another wall.

Ino sighed longingly, and Shikamaru stopped looking around her.

Shikamaru… it would probably be frustrating, being put in a group with him. He never really did anything, and I wouldn't even be able to figure out what was going through his head in a battle...

_No, _I shook my head. Not him… I needed someone else to focus on; when I got anxious, I started crying if I didn't look into someone else.

Not that I wouldn't start crying anyway.

_Three people, huh… _Amaya, sitting on the edge of the table across the aisle from me, stared down grimly. I didn't hate her, either- but being around her made me shiver. _That's… that's too bad. I didn't really want to… _She sighed, looking up again.

_Can I protect all of them? _

"…And Hibachi." I flinched at the sound of his name, but I didn't look for him. Instead, I had to stop myself from actually staring at _her_. Did she… really want to protect them? She was always so cold and dark and ominous… I'd just figured...

I guess she wasn't exactly like Sasuke, after all.

"Team Seven!" Iruka Sensei called out- I might've been imagining it, but I thought his voice had more power than it had for the other two teams he'd already barked out. My head and thoughts snapped to him, and I suppose that somewhere deep down, I really did know. In the end, it seemed inevitable to us- fate is funny, how it works that way- and our destinies were set because of it. "Chiasa Uzumaki!"

My bones hardened, and my senses amplified. The room seemed to dim as Iruka Sensei's words shone vibrantly amongst the darkness, and I started holding my breath again.

If it was anyone like I was expecting, I wouldn't be able to make it through the rest of the day.

"Naruto Uzumaki!" Even though I saw it coming, a little warmth spread through me. If they didn't give me Naruto, I really would be alone… and even though I was too absorbed in my own thoughts to hear everyone else's, I knew almost all of us were thinking the same thing.

We were on our own. Teams were just a show; something written on paper to force us together so we wouldn't die. But it was still survival of the fittest; Sasuke still beats Amaya, even if they're on the same team. He could beat all of us in a fight, no matter what.

_How easy was he going on me_? The clone Jutsu at the end really was a surprise to him, but… everything else was a slowly carried out movement; a steady, thought out response so that he'd lose and look like he did it on accident.

"_Yes_!" Naruto pumped his fist in the air, looked over at me, and smiled, baring his unbelievably sharp teeth. For a minute, I smiled, too. For years, now, I'd be with him every day. I'd train with him. I'd watch him get strong. This… this was what we'd always wanted. Just a little partnership, and we could work towards his becoming the Hokage together.

Clearly, though, it wasn't going to be that easy.

_First, there's Chiasa… then Sakura-chan… then… _My heart gave a little jolt. _Oh God…_ that's right- of _course _he'd want Sakura. He wouldn't be happy if we got matched with anyone but her. Naruto looked around without actually seeing anyone, focused on Iruka Sensei again, and locked his eyes. _Anyone but Sasuke_, he decided.

_Not me… _Someone whispered. _Anyone but me… not me, _please _don't let this be me… _It was her, of course. She was picturing the look on Ino's face as she wiped her forehead with her hand.

"Sakura Haruno!"

Of course it was.

Her jaw dropped, but I didn't move; Sakura and I… we were both incredibly weak. Naruto could fight, but he wasn't very logical at all- So really, even though it pained me to say it, and even though I was too busy staring around Naruto's victory dance back at Sakura's screwed eyes, I wasn't surprised at _all _when he said the next name.

_I can't believe I… ended up with these two. _She started remembering us; things he said, things I didn't say, and she realized how much she'd be forced to know us now.

_Survival of the fittest, _I reminded myself, and I looked away from her.

"Sasuke Uchiha!" Naruto froze mid-jump, landed on his feet, and slumped down into his chair as though to push Sakura up out of her own. I'd called it, but I still jumped at the sound of his name coming out of Iruka Sensei's mouth- maybe I'd forgotten that he was a real person. Maybe I hadn't remembered that behind all the stupid fairy tales going on in my head, there was still an angry, ignorant bastard that had avoided beating the shit out of me sitting two seats away from my pensive anxiety.

And they _were _stupid fairy tales. The Nine-Tailed Fox was a bunch of bullshit that everyone believed, and Yang was a figment of my imagination… she had to be. So, this was what Sasuke and I had to do with each other. It made sense, but it probably didn't go any farther; he'd be a Chunin in no time. I'd still be a Genin, and we'd never… never talk to each other again.

My face paled.

_Of all the fucking…! _Naruto crossed his arms and glared into space as Iruka Sensei paused to let it sink in. _He… he… _

Then… Naruto smiled.

I should've been horrified as soon as I saw it; I should've gasped and slapped him across the face or stood up or done _something_, but there were too many reactions- too many thoughts and too many worries to hold me.

Number Twenty, Number Thirteen, Number Five, and Number One. We were an interesting group, that was for sure… but I couldn't see it happening. I couldn't see myself carrying out missions with these people, reluctantly getting to know them… I clutched my stomach, feeling feint.

Shizuka let out a sigh, and at the same time, I could hear Hinata shifting uncomfortably in her seat.

_So I won't… be with Naruto-kun after all, huh_? She was getting lost in the back of his drooping head.

I thought I was going to scream. _Nothing _made any sense at all. What was I? I wasn't skilled, yet they labeled me number five. I wasn't special, but Yang's will lingered inside of _me_… everyone was exaggerating their normal behaviors or turning them upside-down or… or…

"Team Eight! Hinata Hyuga!" I never thought that Iruka Sensei taking all the attention away from us would make things _worse_. Everyone startled, and a thousand frantic voices pounced on me.

"Y-yes?" She squeaked, heart speeding.

_Who's it… going to be? _She was _really _hoping for Naruto _that _badly? I had no idea why she liked him so much, but… Now, for once, he wasn't the first thing on her mind.

"Kiba Inuzuka!" _Oh… _I picked him out quickly, watching him stretch his arms behind his head. Kiba was so haughty, and Hinata was so quiet… would the two of them work? Did I _care_? He just sneered, waiting.

"Amaya Nara!" She raised her eyebrows at her name, but she seemed to stop caring after a moment, letting her gaze find its way back down to her lap. _Hinata… fine. But him? Really? _I could hear the vein popping out in her forehead from over here. The three of them would definitely be a threat; they seemed to have a lot more skilled Shinobi then we did already. The fourth one… should probably be Choji Akimichi, then- right? That would balance it out. Number Ten, Number Two, Number Four, and Number Nineteen. I nodded, ready for him to say it.

My judgment, despite all of my advantages, was off.

"Shino Aburame!" I gave a little start as I vaguely heard Sakura turn around and stick her tongue out at Ino.

_Number _Three_?! _ We were done for. They'd… they'd _kill _us! What were these people _thinking_, making a team like that?! Three of their members were in the top five… I grabbed the tip of one of my curls and yanked down on it, turning my hand red. No one else in the class seemed to notice what a benefit they had, and I scoffed at them.

_Idiots! _Unbelievable. It was almost as though they didn't care about their own good at all… like they could throw their life away as an unopened box. They would never, _ever _see the light! These people, these names… they were _killers_. _I _could be one of their killers.

One of them could kill me.

I slapped myself in the leg, chastising my distant premonitions. I needed air. I needed to breathe, calm down, and run.

"I can't _believe _this is _happening _to me!" Ino shrieked, banging on the table with her fists. "She… _she _has _Sasuke _on her team…" She let out a wail, and Shizuka shifted away from her.

She was worried about Sasuke, not her life. Of course, Sasuke was _much _more valuable than that.

"I don't understand you people…" Shikamaru mumbled, rolling his eyes away from her. "Why do women always like men like him?" Even without looking, I could see her eyes swell up like balloons. She gawked at him for a minute, then seemed to compose herself as she smiled.

"I wouldn't expect you to get it, Shikamaru." She sounded nauseatingly playful. Shikamaru seemed to be the only person in the room who actually _did _get it, but I didn't make an effort to disagree.

Sometimes I wished I could undo this stupid Mind Possession Jutsu. I knew where I had to go and what I had to do to calm down, but for the time being, I was stuck here. I decided that letting all of these twisted, anxious feelings get to me instead of listening to Ino's petty, melodramatic shock with Shikamaru wasn't good for my health, so I listened on.

"Well, I'm not a woman…" He mumbled. Ino ran her hand through the hair in her pony tail and smiled at him again. I had to notice that he had bags under his eyes- he probably didn't deal with people like her very well, but he watched her laugh at him regardless.

"This is why we don't like people like _you_." She looked all knowing as she stared at the floor in front of her. "You're not very smart… I'd hate to get trapped in _your _group!" Was she stupid? Everyone else in the classroom could see it… Even _I _thought it was pretty funny.

"Ino…" Shizuka finally interjected, but it was too late to say it. Ino was too ignorant to notice what was blatantly staring her in the face, and there was nothing anyone could do about it.

There were only four names left.

"Team Ten!" Iruka Sensei called. Unlike the eight jittery imbeciles from the dead air between team eight and Hinata's name, Ino was the only unsuspecting one in the room. "Ino and Shizuka Yamanaka!" The two of them didn't even look at each other… they didn't smile, they didn't frown… they looked like they hadn't even heard him as he called the next two.

"Shikamaru Nara!" Ino gasped, and whipped her gaze around to stare at him. He sneered at her, looking like he was about to actually have _fun _for a change.

"Well, damn… looks like you have to stick with me, huh, Ino?" She growled at him, and I barely heard Sensei yell Choji's name.

A bag of chips crinkled, and I knew he was fine with it. He and Shikamaru were as inseparable as me and Naruto, but with Ino there… Ino was judgmental, and Choji was the most overweight person I'd ever seen. They… _they _certainly wouldn't be a threat… to Sasuke…

_The teams are all called. _I was trying to console myself, mentally wiping off the sweat that was starting to seep into the collar of my shirt. _It's almost time… _I would make it out alright; if I survived this, I would be able to run away again and get my head straight…

_And now I'm stuck with gloomy and fatty, too! _A rampage pressed on the bones outlining my brain as Ino gritted her teeth. _Just hold on a little longer, Chiasa… I can… I can… _I knew it just as well as the next observant person.

I was going to die.

"Well," Iruka Sensei cleared his throat, stepping out to stare at us openly. He had a sheet of paper in his hands, but he wasn't looking at it. "All the-"

Was I… actually going to make it? Were we really almost done?

No, of course not.

"_Iruka Sensei_!" Naruto shot up, pointing a short, erect finger at the ceiling. Iruka Sensei looked a little disgruntled, but his surprise was innocent. Instead of yelling at Naruto like he normally would, he actually waited.

I knew better than to take that as a good sign. Everyone turned to him, rolling their eyes, chuckling… they never took him seriously.

I felt like burying myself alive.

"Why do _I _have to be on the same team as _that_?!" He slammed his palm on the desk, started climbing on top of the chair, and snapped his finger down to emphasize Sasuke.

My cheeks lit up, and the muscles in my brain tightened; I must have been banging my head on a metal wall as hard as I could, trying to punch a hole through it, because I thought I was going to inherit a concussion.

"Fuck!" It was too much. Yang. Five. Kyuubi. Shizuka. Naruto. Sasuke. Sakura… I groaned as quietly as I could, not willing to pull any of Naruto's attention on me.

Why did this have to happen to me? Why, today- the day when my life was supposed to get _better_- did everything suddenly clot in my path and torturously try to stop me? I would rather be behind Mizuki's tree again, or dead, or in Yang's dreamscape…

"Naruto, you…!" Sakura's growl penetrated my eardrums, but the sudden hammering that reverberated around the walls of my head drowned her out; It took me a second to realize that I was hitting my forehead against the edge of the desk.

"Naruto…" Iruka Sensei switched back to chastising teacher mode- straightening his back and buffing his chest.

Really, my head didn't even hurt that much after I broke some skin… My vision surged, my dense blood flowed down my cheek, but I was too numb to feel it now. If I bled to death, would anyone notice?

Probably not.

"Sasuke is the top Rookie this year… whereas you're scores put you at the bottom..." Even without looking through someone else's eyes, I knew Naruto's finger started drooping as he gawked at Sensei's incomprehensible words. Naruto… had always… _hated _Sasuke. Once he'd even squeezed a pillow into something barely resembling the kid's body, drawn all over it with crayon, and started beating it up.

_"Today I'm gonna win for sure!" _A lot of that aggression was probably because of Sakura, too.

And what was I stuck with for the rest of my life? Exactly.

Naruto looked over at Sasuke, heartbroken, and a blast of roasting blood cannonballed through my heart. Still trying to conceal myself, I lifted my head up for just a second and stared straight at Sasuke's poker face.

He gazed forward, focusing all of his attention on the wall in front of him. What was more, his thoughts weren't even acknowledging the situation at all- he really _was _ignorant. I couldn't, nor would I ever, truly understand that boy.

Honestly, a part of me wasn't sure which part of him was the scariest. There was the fate, which would probably come bight me in the ass later… there was the silence, which didn't give anything away at all… but thinking about it right there, almost as though I was seeing him for the first time… the most horrifying and impressionable thing about him were undoubtedly his eyes.

They showed absolutely nothing. They weren't like Amaya's- hers were indecisive, sad, angry… _pained_, even. But his… even if he had been raised to be as loquacious as Naruto, with those eyes, it would be no different.

He wouldn't be saying anything. There would be a stream of monotonous words flying out of his mouth, empty, barely polite… and he'd be totally emotionless.

Sometimes I wondered if that would hurt more.

"Just stay out of my way, dumbass." Sasuke muttered it lowly enough to hold his brevity, but everyone could hear him, and it woke me up quickly enough to steer my focus away from him before he saw me staring.

That was two days in the same week now, wasn't it? I'd never even _tried_ to bother with anyone like this before. The most I'd ever gotten to know anyone besides Naruto was by their brief, irrelevant mind mutters that outlined their personalities for me; I didn't mind them… I just didn't care. As I rested my head on my hands again, I squinted at the floor.

What was so special about him?

"_What did you just say to me, you big-headed son of a bitch?!" _This time, I anticipated everyone's nasty thoughts. This happened every day, but today, I had an insanely bad feeling that Naruto was finally going to do something- and, knowing him, _I'd _probably regret it for the rest of my life.

"Wanna fight, loser?" He didn't even have the decency to turn his head. He just kept staring forward, like he'd asked a rhetorical question, and ignored everyone's sudden burst of laughter.

I'd had it. I was so… absolutely _finished _with this. All of it was just a jumbled swirl in my head; I didn't need a disconsolate, miserable, masochistic psycho-bastard infuriating me until I managed to get my strength up… and I didn't need to be tied to him.

I was just about to slam my hand down on the desk and stand up when Iruka Sensei stared at the two of them sharply, and Naruto slid back into his seat. He folded his arms, sticking out his upper lip, and clutched his opposite upper arms.

_Can we jump out the window _now_? _I didn't even acknowledge the comment, as much as I wanted to agree with him. I lay there for another few seconds, remembering how my heart surged as soon as I'd thought about rebelling, and humorlessly laughed at myself.

"That's enough! _Both _of you!" Iruka Sensei sounded impossibly angry as he banged on his podium impatiently. The long, awkward pause rang in my ears, and finally, Iruka Sensei grunted. "Your Jonin instructors will be here to pick you up after lunch. Dismissed." As everyone rose easily around me, the truth behind what I had almost done flooded through me.

How could I even think about calling so much attention to myself? What the hell would I do after the fact? Stand there like an idiot, probably. They'd jeer at me, my face would light up, and I'd run out of the room again. I grabbed the bridge of my nose with two fingers, trying to breathe without letting them in to poison my thoughts.

Once a weakling, always a weakling, after all…

And this was survival of the fittest.

_"Why did you come back?" He stared into his disciple's eyes kindly and curiously from across the table, noticing the subtle smile lines that had formed across her cheeks. She grinned, emphasizing them, and seemed to stare past him as she opened her mouth to answer. Avaron might not have been his favorite, but she was always the wisest of the four of them, and the Third Hokage had never ceased to hold her in the highest respect. "You still don't look a day older than forty, by the way."_

_Avaron wasn't used to this. She and her Sensei sipped their cups of tea as equals, and he was leaning in, waiting to hear her answer. Even though she was a little uncomfortable in this new setting, she didn't show it. She slouched leisurely, smiling wholeheartedly as she felt that familiar, horrifying sensation shoot through her at its memory… _

_"I suppose it was the Chakra. I woke up last night at… at around midnight, I believe… and it was almost… like I was feeling…" She swallowed, trying to bury the lump in her throat, and decided to stop talking so she wouldn't break her composure. Lacing her loosely manicured nails together, she squeezed her knuckles and held her breath. This was the only thing that could break Avaron's smile- on any other topic, smiling was how she got _rid_ of the pain. Laughs were her shining compensation for tears. But this… this was… _

_"Akira?" He looked at her sadly, but her all-knowing smile revealed no pain. Looking into her deep, honey-brown eyes now, he couldn't help but picture the little girl he used to know, running around, training with her teammates and growing such a powerful conviction. That little girl had left, for a time, but he liked to think that she was back now; the vivacity of a child could never be replaced, even if a stronger person is born of it… but Avaron was a strong, beautiful woman. _

_Both of them knew she was ready. _

_"This little girl…" She heaved a sigh. "Chiasa Uzumaki. That's what Kushina named her, I heard…" She started nervously flicking her left palm with her right hand, picturing everything that added up to this girl. She knew who her parents were, about Yang, Kakashi… and she felt something solidly unexplainable. It wasn't affection- it _couldn't _have been. She didn't know this child, despite her disciple's and her sister's wishes. Maybe it was just the _want_ to know her; the _potential _to love her. _

_Avaron did love most things, after all. _

_"Yes…" The Sandaime nodded gravely, picturing her beaten down face in his mind. "I put her under Kakashi." It was a wise decision- he had already decided that. Kakashi's knowledge of Miyako and her Aunt would help Chiasa learn more about herself, and when she really needed it… she'd have a chance at surviving, and concealing that power. _

_"Who's on her team?" Even though her face still remained calm and cheerful, the importance of the unspoken truth was evidently lying between them. This… this could determine so many things… and Avaron had a feeling, one small, _horrible _feeling… _

_"Well, her brother, Naruto, naturally…" The third knew why she'd asked the question, but he also knew how to back up his choices. Every year, he was right. He made sure of that. This year, he had put together a team of trackers… the classic Ino-Shika-Shizu-Cho combination… he knew what he was doing. "Sakura Haruno, who's scored in the highest percentage for the "knowledge" portion of the tests throughout the years…" Avaron knew what remained; Sakura Haruno wasn't important here. She was just a back up, one that happened to be compatible with the team. _

_The real strategy was placed in the final member._

_"Sasuke Uchiha… right?" her voice was a barely audible whisper. She had worked it all out in her head, but… if Sasuke and Chiasa were on the same team, for Sasuke's well-being, obviously… _

_Chiasa was simply going to die. There was no other way that the events could play out; no other way to save her Village. _

_He released a circle of smoke from his lips, and narrowed his eyes at the floor. If her Sensei had cried a tear for every promise he ever broke… she knew that_ this _would be his only vulnerable point. "It was for the best," the Sandaime agreed. _

CHIASA

This was so much better.

As I treaded through the trees, farther and farther away from that retched hell hole where all of my troubles seemed to wait, it was like a weight was getting slowly, agonizingly lifted off my chest. The fresh air filled my nostrils, and I let it circulate through my mind, clearing my thoughts out and renewing my sanity.

This was the forest.

I was practically stumbling over my own feet, staring at the sun-made patterns ghosting across my skin from the canopy of the leaves. I knew where I was headed, though. The entire East inner forest had exactly fifty seven clearings in total. Whenever I felt like this- like I was about to explode- I went to one of my favorite ones. It wasn't _my_ clearing- not the one with my little section of the stream and my oak tree- but I still loved laying on the flat, perfectly round, chopped down tree in the center and staring up at the sky. I could always feel someone else's presence there, and that was how I knew it was already claimed, but it didn't matter.

I belonged here.

There was no way in _hell _that I'd go back out there and sulk in my own misfortune. This was my home, and there was no one in the world who could possibly change that. My heart leaned towards my destination as I placed my hand on one if its bordering trees. _So close… _

"Two hundred and Ninety _Eight!_" An ear shattering, unnatural sounding _bang _shot through me, and a shadow crawled into my awareness from ahead. Without even thinking about it, I darted behind the tree, trying to hide myself from whoever this person was, and shoved four fingers in my mouth. I managed to stifle my scream, but his thoughts were so clear to me now that I couldn't believe I hadn't seen him before.

_Two more… two more, or it's a thousand and fifty five one-handed push-ups… _I had never felt these mind patterns before; I knew I'd never met him, and I wasn't planning on seeing him now.I needed to get the fuck out of there, because if he saw me… if anyone strong enough to cause whatever that bang was ever laid their eyes on me…

My bones would be next.

_Move. Turn around. _I had to instruct myself to get distracted from the icy fear penetrating my skin- I'd never escape his sensual range if I thought about it too much. My legs were already like uncooked, instant ramen noodles; impossibly brittle, scrunched up, and stiff, but I forced them to rotate anyways. _Don't breathe, don't blink, and don't look back. _I faced the other way now, headed somewhere- _anywhere_- else. My arms numbed and dropped by my sides as I calculated my survival rates. In approximately eleven meters, I could start tree hoping, and I could start running after nearly eight.

"Two hundred and Ninety-" Just as I thought I'd evaded him, a strong, brick green wall generated in front of my face, and my toe rebounded naturally and sent me flying backwards.

_Scream_! This was the end- it had to have been. The world flew up in a blur around me, and my eyes flew up to his little, curiously round black ones. Before I touched the ground, I dug into my lungs- Naruto would hear me, right? The last I'd seen him, he was asking Sakura to eat with him… So he could come and save whatever was left of me, right?

"Who… Chiasa… Uzumaki-san…?" My breath caught in my throat as a single, rock solid hand clamped around my wrist. My heels dug into the Earth, and I stopped with my hair dangling nearly a foot above the ground before I met his worried expression again.

A round face, barely framed by a shiny black bowl cut sent its bulging little eyes staring back at me, and his overly pointed eyelashes practically stabbed the skin above his nearly invisible eyelid as he blinked rapidly, analyzing me. I, for one, was so mesmerized by his _insane _eyebrows, ( I'd actually thought they were cats at first), that I almost didn't notice the fact that he knew my name and had even bothered to put honorifics at the end of it. His shadow stretched over me, and my Academy rank floated in the center of his mind.

"Ow!"

I didn't know him, so… Who the hell _was _this guy?

SASUKE

_Bastard… _I didn't think he was smarter than he looked; I didn't think for a _second _that I wouldn't be able to kill him. He was just lucky I expected to be _alone _when I climbed into an abandoned, dusty old attic.

Naruto Uzumaki snuck up on me that day, and his putrid taste was still lingering on my lips. I _would've _eaten something to get it out, but… There was a gag in my mouth, my lunch was in ten pieces all the way across the room, and I was tied up on a creaky wooden floor. Who would've thought that such an idiot even knew what Shadow Clone Jutsu _was_?

He wouldn't be able to do this again.

I could even hear _those four_ outside the window, laughing at me. They couldn't take me even if they tried _together_…! Who were they… who were they laughing at?!

"That was exciting," one of them sighed sardonically, "let's get on with our lives." They were standing on top of another building, but I could hear them from here. I thought the one who spoke was Shizuka Yamanaka, and the high pitched, arrogant voice that followed hers only told me that I was right.

"Hah! No one can beat Sasuke after all. See _that_, Shikamaru?" What a little traitor… I bit the fabric covering my mouth. I could show her right now if I wanted to- I could tear through the rope around my hands, _melt _the stupid voice restraint, and beat Naruto's ass on the spot.

That was when I actually realized what she'd said.

_Me? No one can beat _me_? _Didn't she _just _see Naruto walk out in one piece? I _watched _him strut out the window… _Unless… _

I gritted my teeth as my eyebrows vandalized my forehead. _This guy… _he was unbelievable! Was he really… did he really _transform into me_? He could ruin _everything_! I stared at the wall for a minute, trying to calm myself down.

If he got rid of my shot at being a Ninja, I would never get my hands on _that man_. I could literally kill Naruto for that, considering or omitting Chiasa. I didn't need her… I could land her in the hospital _again, _for all I cared.

A drop of sweat rolled down my cheek.

"Too bad. I thought something around here was actually gonna get interesting for once." Shikamaru's voice was dull, as usual…

_What am I doing? _What did I care about them? I took a deep breath, held it, and yanked my wrists apart. The back of my head only compressed for a second before the rope conceded to my strength and snapped, and I yanked the piece of shit off my mouth. Sliding the ropes that circled across my body down, I reoriented myself and slowly pushed myself to a stand. I'd take the back window out towards the trees, and I could start looking for him where Team 10 wouldn't be able to see me.

Naruto… was next on my hit list.

CHIASA

The wind blew at my back, sending a few curls back up in front of my face.

His hold on my wrist _hurt_! Was this kid… was he a rock? A mountain? I could feel his steady fingers digging into my skin as he smiled at me.

…Sicko.

"Are you alright, Chiasa-san?" I blinked at him, hopping the bandages mummifying his hands didn't have to absorb any excess sweat rolling down my arm. How the hell did he know my _name_? If any random person in the Village knew who I was, I was _That Girl. _Not Chiasa; I had no idea what he could possibly want with me, but I wasn't going to stick around and find out.

Still leaning about a foot off the ground, I brought my other hand up in the air, perpendicular to my body, and slammed it down on the back of his grip. He didn't yelp in pain or frown at me; instead, he just cocked his head to one side and let me slip.

I guess I asked for it.

Another shriek exposed from my lips, and I cut through the remaining air without a second thought, landing flat on my head.

"Ugh!" Red droplets diverged off my grunt, and the minor head wound that I had idiotically given myself earlier opened up again. At the sight of my blood, the Cat-browed boulder gaped.

Was there no where that I could be safe?

I slammed my palms into the floor, letting the pain cancel out the fear, and thrust myself upwards and passed him. I'd have to find somewhere else to run- if he chased me, with speed like _that_, not even_ I_ stood a chance… but I didn't have any other choice. I let my Chakra roll down to my legs to power myself away, and for about two seconds, I actually felt really evasive.

Then, I kicked one of my heels off the ground, sent my foot soaring forward, and started falling backwards again.

Of course I did.

And, just like last time, this boy was there. He scrunched his mega brows together, actually _worried, _as he grabbed my other arm more lightly this time.

"Chiasa-san?" An effortless, innocent grin spread across his face again, and I finally looked away and let him pull me to my feet. "Is this a method of training?" A… a method of…? I shook my head. It didn't matter _what _he thought I was doing… I had to get out of there before things got ugly. And yet… here was this boy, knowing who I was, catching me because he felt like it, and smiling at me afterwards… I didn't think such a person existed.

"Um… Who… who _are_ you?" The blood rushing under my cheeks warmed me up, and stared at his outfit instead, trying to find something besides his kind, concentrated features to focus on.

That didn't make anything any better.

Apparently, this person decided that it would be perfectly appropriate to go running around in the forest wearing nothing besides an ultra tight, flashy, elastic green _morph suit_, two orange leg warmers on top of normal looking sandals, and bandages from the bases of his fingers up to his elbows. He also had a few tying his Shuriken holster to his leg… and a red headband around his waist.

This was another way to express feminism.

"Rock Lee!" He slammed a wrapped up hand into his chest, sending a sparkling smile spiraling at my face. "I was just here training, but I would not at all mind some company if you wanted to use this clearing." Something about the way he said _use _made me pop a vein. Who the hell did he think he was? Grabbing a stranger, calling me by my name…

And his name was _Rock_.

"I-I…" I couldn't stay calm with someone like this! There was no way _anyone _could've expected me to put up with _that_… "How the hell do you…" I backed away from him, and his face fell immediately. "What do you want from me?!" Where did I have left to go? I would never go to my oak tree in the daylight again. Some scars… some scars were too painful to look at. But if I couldn't even wander the forest without being _attacked _by outrageously strong people, where was I supposed to run?

Rock furrowed his brow, and my back pressed up against the tree again. I had backed up too far, I guess, but he stood in the same spot, stroking his imaginary beard as he pondered an appropriate answer.

"Why do you think that I want something from you?" A part of me quietly noted that he never used contractions or shortened his words when he spoke, but the rest of me couldn't stop _gawking_. Why did I think he _wanted _something from me? Wasn't it _obvious_? He spoke to me respectfully. He helped me _twice _before I fell, he…!

When I didn't say anything, he looked even more confused.

"Why are you making assumptions about me if you do not even know me?" I was about to tell Rock Lee that I had to go; that I was needed back at the academy, and I needed to eat my "lunch." (I hadn't actually eaten in twenty four hours, and I wouldn't until the following morning, if I was hungry.) But before I could even open my mouth, he had managed to shut me up.

What _was _I doing, judging a person I didn't know? Me, of all people… After all, he could've been anyone. Any hurtful thing I said to him could've punctured a lifelong wound, and I'd never know it. What if he was orphaned? What if he had a made up demon inside him, too? What if no one trusted him, and I had just prematurely decided that he was a bad person?

His eyes didn't reflect the pain that the sad little girl's that I used to know so well, but they discharged the same confusion and disappointment that I knew hers would have had for me. He was a stranger, and he was being… _nice_ to me. That had happened once in my entire life, so what was I doing?

In a quick, easily identifiable motion, I shamefully wiped a tear from my eye. Not believing myself, I allowed my lips to part slowly. For the first time in my life, I was about to say it out _loud_- for someone to hear, not in a dream, without a trace of whisper in my throat.

"I'm… sorry." it stung.

NARUTO

How the hell did he walk _around _like this? My head was so far above the ground, and all this _muscle _clung to my body… didn't he ever get weighed _down_? It might've been because I had to constantly level the Chakra that I was using to stay as Sasuke for so long, but I was having trouble _walking_.

But he never saw it coming! His face when he saw me… I thought his jaw was going to break off and hit the floor! Reminding myself that Sasuke would _not _randomly walk around laughing, I thought about Sakura's words to calm me down.

_"Hey, Sakura, I was wondering if, you know… since we're on the same team now…" _I was just trying to _have lunch _with her. I wasn't… I didn't even _touch _her. I looked her straight in the eyes, smiled, and she told me I was annoying.

Me! Annoying! Well… now I'd see how she liked me. I have to say, this was the best plan I'd ever had. He wasn't so hard to ambush, either… he couldn't take three of me at a time!

As the long trail that let to the back of the academy winded down, a bench came into view. At first, that was all I saw; I had passed that bench a thousand times for a million different reasons, and even though today was _my day_, the pile of bricks concealing it were still the same thing.

That is, until I saw the top of a pink-haired head sticking out from the top of one of its borders.

_So soon? _My heart sped up, but I kept my face straight; this is where the bulk of my plan went into action, and I wouldn't mess up here. Sakura, sighing with her sad, beautiful green eyes, was staring straight at the floor, moping.

She'd never see me coming.

SAKURA

_What am I to him? _My hands felt so freezing on my chin as I slumped over and stared at the floor that I thought my face was on fire. Was I blushing? I must've been… my heart hurt with every second it pulsed blood through my veins. What did I look like? Why didn't he even… want to _talk _to me? After Naruto was done pestering me _again_, I had gone to look for him. He just always seemed… so far _away _from me. Now he was so _close… _I sighed, looking up at the clouds.

We'd be on the same team from today on. It didn't even _matter _that Naruto and Chiasa were there to me, because this was always what I'd dreamt about. Being with Sasuke… it wasn't so farfetched anymore, right?

But then… why would he ever like a girl like _me_? I had this weird pink hair that I had grown out _just for him_, I wasn't proportional, my forehead was huge… a part of me wished that I still had my bangs, so that I could hide under them. I let my shoulders slump as I lowered my gaze, trying to force the perfect image of his face from my head… and I froze mid-exhale.

He was standing there.

I gasped a little bit as I took him in, leaning against a tree across from me, _staring at my face. _And his eyes were so passionate, too! He was smirking that cute little boyish grin at me, and I'm pretty sure… I don't know, because my pounding heart was taking up most of my attention, but I'm _pretty sure _the skin of my jaw ended up burning my palms. _He really… I must have a shot with him, then! Does he… this has to mean he likes me! It _has _to! _

Before I knew it, I was sitting up straight. _What if… _I had planned this moment out in my head for_ever_. It was really happening! It was really gonna happen!

_"Sakura-chan, your forehead is so… charmingly wide…" _I shifted in my seat just thinking about it. It was finally here! Sasuke… was mine. _"It almost makes me want to kiss it_._" _And then I'd smile at him- not like a little, shy girl's smile, but like a strong, mature young woman's, and I would say…

"_Well, that's what the vast surface area is for..._" Replaying the words in my head was like screaming my stupidity at myself. What was I _thinking_? He was still beaming steadily at me, but I let my head drop again. He probably thought I was _funny_… What could forehead girl possibly have to offer _him_? I wasn't going to believe in Fairy Tales anymore… Especially not with a rival like Ino. _Her_! _She _had to be my rival! Why couldn't I have chosen someone like Chiasa, Hinata, or even _Shizuka? _Ino was the number seven rookie. I was the number thirteen.

And Sasuke was Number One. Twelve people out of my grasp.

_I really am pathetic, aren't I…? _I almost felt like smiling, like hiding my tears and having a normal conversation with him, instead of constantly cheering for him on the side lines. After all… we had at least a _year _before either of us became Chunin.

"You're forehead is charmingly wide…" My body went stiff as his deep, velvety voice pierced through me.

I hadn't done it justice.

"It almost makes me want to kiss it." My eyes shot up to his face, and in one single moment, I think I took in everything.

The sun protruded across the radiant, cloudless blue sky as bird calls filled the yard, and the summer's translucent green leaves danced soundlessly through the air. When the wind picked up, drowning out every other sound but our heart beats, it playfully ruffled his bangs and sent my clumsy strands flying all over my face. His smile was like nothing I'd ever seen before; he wasn't even flashing me with his teeth, and I still thought he was going to blind me.

_Fuck yeah! _I felt my forehead shrink a little as my eyes consumed its bottom. _This Fairy Tale is _coming true! Ino could eat _shit_! At that point, I was so on top of the world that I thought Amaya and I could switch places on that list. I didn't even bother reminding myself about Naruto, and how just half an hour earlier, he was claiming those lips for himself. They were _mine_! I started holding my breath before I even realized that he had moved.

"Or at least… that's what _Naruto_ would say."

My neck snapped as my face resumed its rightful place: the _floor._

What the hell was I thinking?

"Oh," I muttered brilliantly.

NARUTO

My voice had never sounded like anything but my own or a sexy girl's before… and I have to say, everything about him was just so damn _uncomfortable_! Stabilizing my Chakra was getting harder and harder, _especially _since Sakura was right in front of me… but my _throat _hurt. His vocal chords vibrated so _much_. It was a good thing that Chiasa had stopped me from drinking the milk that morning, or my stomach would've been killing me, too.

"I have something to ask you." Steadily, trying not to look at her face, I slid down in the bench next to her and looked forward, slouching. I had already made Sasuke look like an ass by leading her on. _Now _was where I got to work this towards _my _advantage. Immediately, she jumped, starting to stare at my dimmed beauty.

If only I was in my own body at that point…

"Y-yes?" _Right where I want her… she's right where I want her… _The warmth of her body hitting my leg was almost enough to throw my Chakra out of control and transform me back into myself. Knowing Sakura… if that happened, my amazing plan wouldn't be the _only _thing that was over.

"What do you think about that guy, Naruto?" I hoped I wasn't shaking- then again, maybe she was too Sasuke-crazy to care… She paused for a second, furrowing her brow, and bent over to be on eye-level with me. She took a deep breath, like she was even considering not responding. Slowly, her eyebrows started to settle like rocks on her face, and she narrowed her eyes at the trees.

"He… He's annoying… and insensitive and…" Her voice had suddenly gone cold, and I actually turned to her to make sure I was hearing her tone right. Her face was grim, like she had just been reminded of a dead person. _What's going through your head? _My chakra flew up my throat, and I swear my heart stopped; I seriously thought I was going to lose it right there, but I managed to get it back under control enough to question her sanity. What was wrong with her? Even still, though… my chest suddenly stung… Annoying? Insensitive? What the hell was an _insensitive? _"I feel like he's always down my throat. He doesn't even know a single thing about me… and he's so _obsessed _with me." She curled up her fingers into little balls, and I had to force myself to look the other way. I wasn't… I didn't fawn over her, did I?

"Even though he's so awful, though…" I felt the blush in her voice teasing me, and for a minute, I considered going back and letting the _real _Sasuke go. "All really want is to be recognized by _you_, Sasuke." Before I knew it, I was staring at her again. This time, my eyes were wide, hers were shut, her lips were puckered…

And she was leaning towards me.

CHIASA

He was unlike anything I had ever seen before.

Quickly and constantly, he pushed his body up and down with just the palm of a single hand, counting his push-ups in his head. His other fingers were curled up, tightly stretching across his back as he smiled whole-heartedly at me. Deciding that it was the better of my two options, I stayed here and sat on the giant tree stump to watch him train… but the overwhelming sweat diving down my back hissed the fact that I'd been trying to suppress since he caught me.

Watching Lee, (apparently, Rock was just a title he had cleverly given himself), training, smiling, silently breathing… was one of the most disconcerting events I'd ever witnessed. How could anyone be so _strong_? He blew Mizuki right out of the water. If a hundred thousand Narutos came charging at this boy, he wouldn't even have to blink.

Unless he happened to be the strongest Shinobi in the world, I was even weaker than I gave myself credit for.

I let out a long breath, holding the bitter thought on my tongue before bidding it farewell with the last of my pride. I suppose I really had known it all along… hadn't I? They must've counted speed and reflexes in their grading system- that would explain the number five. And, having fought him at at _least _an eighth of his strength… a part of me didn't even think Sasuke could stand a chance. Plus… Lee was so _happy_! I had never, not once in my life, seen a person who smiled as much and as warmly as he did. The grass seemed to sing as little sweat droplets slid off of his temples and nourished its beds. The nature… even the forest loved him.

"Chiasa-san?" My name around his voice shook me awake, and I turned to stare at him, forcing my skepticism and critical thinking from my mind. He probably expected me to acknowledge his comment, but he would have to learn how to do most of the talking if he ever wanted to speak to me. After a moment of silence, though, he seemed to catch on.

"You were staring into the distance just now. Was _that_ a method of training?!" _There he goes again…_ It was the most spontaneous, bizarre reaction I'd ever seen to someone with a disposition like mine. _Training_? I raised an eyebrow at his enlightened face, still moving up and down, and finally shrugged and waved the thought aside.

"No." I expected him to get uncomfortable, stand up, tell me he had to go… but he just lay there in half a plank, still strengthening his arms, and still smiling at me. Heat started licking my cheeks again as I tried pressing my cool palm to their burning surface. _What the hell… are you, Rock Lee? _Hadn't he ever been told to stay away from me? Or at least… didn't he have enough common sense to steer clear of the like? His face sort of fell a little when I told him there was no training, but he perked up not even a second later with another question.

"You were assigned to your team today, right, Chiasa-san?" He started doing some math in his head, froze, and stared at me wide-eyed. "And… you are on Team Seven, right?" Normally, I would've shut down if someone said that to me. How would they know? Why did they care? But with Lee… everything was just more natural, so I only put my arm in between the two of us like it would hide me while I thought.

"H-How did you know that?" How much did he know? He knew my name, my face… and yet, I had never seen him once in my life. Believe me, if I had seen eyebrows like _that… _I don't think I'd ever be able to get my mind off of them.

Despite the eyebrows and the surprisingly vivid effort put into studying irrelevant people, admittedly, I kind of _liked _Lee. Being with him was like breathing- not my usual, pattern-less hyperventilation, and definitely not those unfortunately frequent periods of time where I stopped breathing all together, but… it stood in my mind as something new. Breathing so obsessively all the time had knocked me out a few times; the overflow of oxygen in my body had certainly taken its toll. I hadn't passed out in a few months at that point… but this was the easiest I'd ever breathed in my life.

The air had a new taste.

"That is what they do every year." The ideas pouring into my mind twisted my stomach like the spoiled milk that I almost drank that morning. As my eyes swelled around the unknown message behind his words, he rambled on with a constant, clueless, benevolent grin on his face.

Oh, how I envied him.

"Twenty, Thirteen, Five, and One are always a team; it has been that way since four-man squads went into practice." My heart plunged into my chest, and my quaking fingertips habitually clawed at its former location to make sure it was still there. _Always… those exact… four numbers? _No, no… it couldn't be true. It had to be a coincidence… Things like this didn't happen! They never did, they never would, and I was sick of them rearing their ugly, nonexistent faces. "I was also on that team, after all." Lee's carefree laugh rang a distant song through the woods, but for once, my mind rooted me to the ground, forcing my focus to cooperate.

_Within months… you're going to start seeing signs of me around you. You'll understand, but not nearly enough to satisfy you. Not even close._

A grim chuckle broke through my teeth as what I, at the time, thought of as the full meaning of those words registered into my awareness.

Fate, huh?

_"I can't believe you still have this perverse, enchanted piece of glass sitting in the _center of your desk_…" Avaron muttered, failing to force a smile from her lips. She saw a young girl through it; her frame was familiar, and her movements were unsure, but she watched as the dumbfounded little Kunoichi eased into her own shoes and began to smirk at the boy next to her. _

_"It's not perverse!" Sarutobi Sensei sounded as light and as happy as Avaron felt, blushing benevolently down into his own invention. The crystal ball glimmered with Chiasa, and he could see the light festering behind the dull, colder brown of her eyes as she started to laugh along with her newfound companion. "This is my most presentable creation; you know that…" _

_He really didn't want to kill her. _

_The two of them starred down at the condemned girl, carrying her own hatred on her shoulders. Could she feel it yet? Was it too soon? He wasn't sure, but he thought she was already suspicious of Sasuke… He let the smoke clouding his lungs encase him in his silent thought._

"_She's very weak…" Avaron noted, watching her flimsy limbs cut her off from the rest of the world around her. _

_For a moment, Avaron looked up, gazing around her Sensei's office. It, just like his habits, hadn't changed at all; the shelves were still dusty and unkempt, proudly bearing his antiquated novels and knick knacks, and they stood above his creaky wooden floor suggestively. Ever since she was a little girl, she'd love to join her Sensei here; it was much cleaner when his wife was still around, but it was so _open. _A large, nearly panoramic window stretched around half the room, dishing light out to every crevice it could get its hands on. The sanguine, tranquil Leaf Village rested below the Hokage's watchful eye, and when she sat here for hours upon hours getting to know the man, she joined him in his duty of protection. _

_"Avaron…" His scratchy, wryly aged voice murmured her name in the space between them, offering it to her like a hand. Having to blink, enhancing the crows feet at the corners of her eyes with her smile, she grasped it wholeheartedly. "You're crying a little… oh ho, have you already started to feel for this girl?" If Avaron began to love this girl,- and the Third Hokage knew she would, for it was in her nature- it would be impossibly damaging to Avaron's mental health. _

_Could she really afford to lose someone _else_? _

_Her Sensei was a smoking dictionary; every thought passing through his head was amplified and elaborated across his face, and he was wrong. Her thoughts weren't on the complicated Chiasa, who sighed an old, thoughtful breath to match Avaron's own. Even though she had been thinking about him, about her three other scattered teammates, she did have to admit to _knowing _this girl. Behind her icy snarl and mistrusting eyes, she felt her sister's heart…. Her parents and older brother had always referred to it as "the heart of a Ninja." _

_Avaron would not let that go to waste. _

_Hiruzen Sarutobi cleared his throat warily, unable to see past Avaron's kind, worriless eyes, and nodded to himself. He had to ask her this question; this was _her _fate, and the two of them knew it better than the ties that bound her to it themselves. Even if the choice was hers… no matter what, her answer would be life changing. _

_"Will you do it?" He whispered softly, suddenly seeming to age._

_"It was never really _my _option. She's my disciple because fate said so; not me." And the Yonnin embraced her youth. _

CHIASA

"Why do you… _do_ that to yourself?" The sunlight cast a shine on Lee's sweaty black hair, and he laughed as he propped himself up to lean on the log next to me.

I had just watched this _planet _do two thousand one hundred and two pushups, distributing them evenly between both _hands_, and he was still breathing casually. As a matter of fact, the guy actually managed to _carry _himself as he smiled giddily forward. Just as I hesitated on telling him that I was seriously wondering what was wrong with him, he turned to me and winked.

"Training!" For a while, I could only stare at him. He didn't seem to notice my blank expression, as he was too busy savoring his impractical routines in his mind, but the word still lingered on the surface of my attention. The way he said it… it was like he was in love with it; he shared a _soul _with it. Why? What the hell was so _special _about it? Just a few minutes ago, Lee had recited every member of my team to me, their numbers, and all of their stats. Why would such a devoted person bother with body strengthening, when his Chakra could clearly be so much stronger? Naruto had also... said that to me once.

What was devotion, even? Pride? My arms started quivering as that horrible sensation overtook me again; was I really just a little girl? What did I know? I had asked someone those questions out loud, once… I had never felt so helpless- so out of the loop.

Had I grown up at all, since all those years ago? Did I… have to _train _to get any emotionally stronger? I bit a whimper back, fighting to claw out of myself.

"L-Lee…" My voice was weak, but he didn't seem to notice. I needed to sound like a textbook; I had to morph with the monotonous words on a page, and become emotionless- that stood alone as how fearlessness was achieved. He raised his brows and grinned at me, extending his dimples and cheeks even farther beyond his round-framed face.

I centered myself, stunting my returned, routine speeded breathing, and swallowed. _I am a Shinobi. _This was just a test; if everything happened for a reason, my meeting Lee was nothing but a test. _I can not afford to lose here_. Shinobi were the most powerful beings in existence. They had no feelings, no presence, and strength so vast that any attack from a human would feel like nothing to them. So, if I could really advertise myself as a Ninja now, I should be able to forget myself and move beyond my sentiments and my past.

But I was Chiasa Uzumaki. Forgetting my past was like forgetting my being, and a wave of nausea pierced through me when I tried to push it aside.

"Ch-Chiasa-san?" Lee squeaked, changing his stance and readying himself to catch me again. I clawed at the side of my leg with the tips of my fingernails and gnawed at my tongue. _That's right… _I was almost entirely off the log now, about to fall on my face when dizziness punched me back. _I'm Chiasa Uzumaki… the weakling. _And I had to get ahold of myself.

Holding my breath, I pinched my arm. _You have to meet his eyes, dumbass. He didn't do anything to you, and he doesn't want to, so _look _at him. _I hung there for just another second as I nodded to myself, and snapped my face up to hold Lee in my slippery, unconfident gaze.

"Lee, why don't you practice something besides strength? How will that help you support your Ninjutsu or Genjutsu?" Those, as we'd learned in the academy, were two thirds of a fighter's set; Ninja techniques, and illusionary techniques respectively. Being physically strong was… totally, absolutely useless in a long-range battle with no Taijutsu.

Taking me by surprise again, Lee's exuberant aura didn't fade, and his smile didn't fall. His expression softened, making him look years and years older than just thirteen, and he seemed to stare past me as he chortled in peace. His eyes were wistful as the air filtered out of his nostrils, and I couldn't help but shy away from the shiver he pushed up my spine.

"I have… a disability." The wind roared past us, consuming the silence in one swift gulp. Pushing my hair in front of my face, it obscured my view of Lee for a moment, and I was left to be shocked on my own.

"Disability…?" My voice intertwined with the breeze, pulling up mute. What could he possibly mean by that? Something that would only let him work out like an addict… could he have some kind of Chakra blockage? That couldn't be true… after all, what he had just done would take half of a _Jonin_'s Chakra. Still… the way he said _that _word… scared me.

He told me a fact; a cold-hearted, inevitable fact- and he didn't even treat it like a burden. How? Shouldn't he be… _ashamed _of such an unfortunate side of him? I _hated _everything about myself because none of my traits even qualified to be considered second-class. Wasn't everyone else the same way? I had always thought so, but…

"Why are you exercising it then? Doesn't it hurt?" Lee's face displayed an understanding of a different interpretation of my words, but I couldn't exactly tell what it was… As the current slowed on the back of my neck, revealing my new friend to me again, my heart rate sped. _What's going on_…? I wasn't afraid of him; not at all. _What is this… feeling? This… silence? _

At the thought, my racing breaths stopped completely. It was quiet.

Too quiet.

My thoughts were the only thing hiding within me; Lee's were a mystery, and the sad look in his eyes would remain unexplained to me for quite some time.

"Because it's my dream," he said simply, not even bothering to remove the contraction.

SAKURA

It… was like nothing I could've ever possibly imagined. First, I leaned into him, blatantly expecting rejection, but nevertheless… it was always worth a try. The wind picked up heavily again, and it draped strands of my hair across my face, but I didn't mind.

Neither did he.

Spirit swelled up in my chest when he closed his eyes hesitantly and started leaning in, and I decided that it was high time for me to do the same. I could feel the heat radiating off of his face; the coolness of his skin- his _heartbeat_. Our faces came closer and closer together, until it was almost as though we were breathing the same breath, looking at the same eyelids, or just… just being _on_e_. _

_Score! I freaking _win_! _It didn't matter who my rival was now! Ino lost. Chiasa lost. Every single girl in the entire leaf village _lost_. This had always been my dream… and it was just half a centimeter away from me.

Our lips met.

NARUTO

I was quavering; all of those stupid girly magazines (that I'd always read to improve Sexy Jutsu), always talked about some stupid "_spark_" or whatever that was supposed to happen when two people kissed. It was supposed to be magical and mysterious and wonderful.

That was horse shit.

I didn't feel any sudden shift in nature, or any _spark_. We were just _kissing_, that's all. The adrenaline taking up my veins was probably enough _electricity _anyway- I could feel hers, too, but at that moment… it seemed like everything that I felt would double over and come back for her, and vice versa.

_That's two in one day, Naruto… _I smiled, and something stirred in my stomach. Like an idiot, I let the kiss intensify, and totally blew it off. _But Sasuke tasted like dog shit, and Sakura tastes like cherries. _The unsettling feeling started eating away at me. _Is this the spark? _When she started losing her sense of thought- and I could _feel _it, because it was almost like seeing into her mind when my lips touched hers- mine cut off, two.

The spiraling Chakra, which I had originally thought to be a bad stomach, soared up to my head and fucking punched me in the skull. I groaned… but I thought it would fit the mood. Just as that happened, however… Sakura's lips moved to my forehead, and there was a very unpleasant shock that came with them. In a jolt away from each other, both of our eyes shot open.

"S-Saku-" My entire body froze, my joints bounded together, and I stared, appalled, at her, not even able to shiver in fear and mortification.

My voice was high again.

SAKURA

That… that… there was no _word _to describe Naruto Uzumaki. That insufferable, insensitive, horrible…! He deserved to _die_. I wanted to take my hands, wrap them around his neck, and silence him.

_Forever. _

Two shrinking, deep blue eyes in a relatively ugly tan face, framed with his stupid neon blonde hair, random freaking_ whiskers_, and obnoxious orange jumpsuit stared back at me. I stood the hell up, flexing the muscles in my arms beside me.

There was a fire raging in my chest, pulling me towards him, that made me twitch as I imagined his head getting cleanly sliced off with my Kunai. _Oh, _how it _satisfied _me…

"Y-you…" There was a growl coming from somewhere, but I ignored it; if anything came at me right at that moment, I'd be able to take it.

Naruto whimpered.

"_GET AWAY FROM ME!" _I threw myself at him, pushing off the ground, fist extended. His jaw wrenched open, let a tiny little scream out through his teeth, and he jumped over the edge and onto the floor as I crashed into it, even feeling it crack a little under my knuckles.

I would not let him escape me that easily.

_"I AM NOT THROUGH WITH YOU YET_!" _Sasuke's taste… _as the fire melted away my throat and my face, I stopped in mid-tackle and heaved over. Before I hit the ground, I saw my twisted, scrunched up, animalistic face in Naruto's eyes… and the growl's owner revealed itself.

I crumbled only three feet away from him.

"S-Sakura-chan…" He mumbled as my head caved into my chest. I grabbed my knees, curled up into a ball, and let my cheek rest on the dirt.

The fire slung the first sob right from the grasp of my self-control.

"J-just get away… from me…" My dream… my fairy tale… I was no princess. I must've been just… just a hindrance to him, of course. Just an ugly little burden, waiting to be blown off and walked all over.

Why couldn't I get a hold on _anything_, when all I wanted was him?

"A-are-" agony swelled inside me, and my nails- which I had, of course, spent _hours _perfecting, hoping he'd notice- dug into my legs. Partly from the pain, but mostly from the rage… my next cry sounded a lot more like a sob.

_"GO!" _The shuffling of feet brushed the side of my attention, and he ran away, letting his shivers grow quieter and quieter. _"GO!" _I cried again, to nothing this time. Tears were spilling out of my eyes, and I bawled all over the floor. "_Go…!_" The word slipped out of my mouth a few more times.

I liked the earth. It would never leave me. It would always acknowledge me and look up to me… and it was subtly beautiful; the underdog. It soaked up my tears with open arms… I just wished I could be as unfeeling as the ground, as soft as its dirt and soil…

But I was just pathetic, insignificant little forehead girl, born to die alone and trail behind in the shadow of the only thing she ever wanted.

I stifled another sob, letting my crushed dream consume my irrelevant remains.

CHIASA

They're eyes matched. Lee kept that old smile on his face as his silent thoughts drifted farther and farther away from me, but the silence didn't even get to me anymore… I was too busy remembering, too caught up in my own to really notice the stillness of our surroundings. I wasn't alone; I had nothing to… nothing to… my heart sped up, and I had to pinch myself to keep my head on my shoulders.

_The first conversation I ever had with Naruto… _it had been a cold fall; he was just in a T-shirt and shorts, barefooted and high-spirited, and he'd found me and my sub-zero body temperature on a street-corner somewhere.

We would turn six in a month.

When I was twelve, on that fateful day, every detail I could recollect was a blur- every moment until I was about seven-years-old had a dark tint to it, and all I really remembered from then was a lot of darkness, the forest, and Hiroki Sensei… but the warm, welcoming steam of ramen noodles filled my senses whenever I brought up this particular memory. I didn't remember our surroundings, though we probably sat at the stools of Ichiraku Ramen… but I remembered the confidence in his eyes, above everything.

_"I hate all of them…" _I thought I'd said. _"As soon as I turn twelve, Ninja or no Ninja, I'm leaving this hell hole. That's all I want." _To me, _that _had composed a dream. A want… a desire… a craving… I _needed _to get away from the stares, from the jeers, from the biting emptiness and life on the streets. Obviously, that wasn't exactly how it happened… but Naruto had never even thought of life my way, though born to the same situation.

After staying silent for a while, I probably finally probed him. _"Don't… don't you hate them, too?" _At that moment, he turned to me, and the dirt stains on his face watched me when his eyes, closed in a smile, couldn't.

_"I'm… going to be Hokage." _He'd reached a hand behind his head and scratched the sweat off his shoulders. The thought I had had right at that moment hit me like a bullet- making my head as sore as it had been when I was remembering the rest of the memory.

_Has he been… _training? It abused my curiosity then almost as much as it did now. _Why would he…? _The urge to laugh didn't crawl up my throat, like he was probably expecting it to. I thought he was crazy, yes, but laughing at something like that… it was the most depressing thing I'd ever heard. Not only that, but confusing as hell… I didn't see anything _funny _about it.

_"Why?" _I could remember my eyebrows pulling my eyes into a wide exasperation, not understanding the appeal of that to him at all… _"Why would you want to be _their _leader? After everything they've done to you? To _me_?" _

Naruto was the first person that I ever liked, right off the bat. Not _liked, _but…

He was my first immediate friend. Lee was the second.

Then, for just a moment, his eyes got old, as Lee's had. I could remember wrinkles in his face that were probably never there… and oh, what a shock it was for me… I had suddenly shrunk to an inch tall, trying to be seen by this man, who was a boy in front of me just seconds ago… before I could try and say anything, though, his sweet, _innocent_ little smile- I was the first person he'd ever shown it to, and I was almost positive that no one besides Sakura had to this day- was back across his face.

_"Because it's my dream_."

I stared at Lee in awe of the gasp of memory he'd just given me. It was almost as though… as though Naruto was standing next to me, smiling brilliantly against the forest around us.

_What is… a dream? _I didn't think I'd ever had one before. _Isn't it just… an unrealistic expectation? _But Naruto _could _become the Hokage. I was sure he would… one day. _An aspiration? _No, there was a difference… but what… I chuckled humorlessly to myself, craning my neck up to see the sky staring me down.

_I'm really _stupid_, aren't I…? _The clouds, cumulous today, were almost _grimacing_- The sky's melancholy, wise blue eyes started screaming an awful emptiness at me… and I had to firmly avert my gaze _again_. It seemed like I had no idea where to look anymore… and I wasn't entirely sure if that bothered me.

_Who am I talking to? _I skimmed an old dream again, nearly laughing at how obsolete it was now. Was that my dream? I had always wanted the sky to welcome me into its grasp, and let me soar through it with a pair of wings… just fly away at my leisure. _How idiotic… _

"What exactly… _is _your dream, Lee?" The sentimentality of my voice sort of surprised me, but at that point, I was getting used to the strange, light feeling crowding my chest. _Am I… smiling_? I was. My cheek bones actually lifted with my lips, obscuring part of my vision, and I slowly turned to look Lee in the face again. Before I knew it, we were smiling at each _other_; the air around us bore only warmth, and, given the choice… I probably would've stayed there forever.

Lee's arm abruptly jerked towards his chest in an energetic fist, and his mouth opened into a wide O as he prepared to attack my question. I, of course, staggered back, and upon doing so… noticed how high the sun had become.

"I am going to become a fantastic Ninja, despite my disability! It'll just take a lot of _training!" _I had to keep myself from ducking as he punched and drop-kicked the air. _Well, talk about a mood-swing… _Plus, wasn't he already a "fantastic Ninja?" He could easily destroy anyone I'd ever met in battle; maybe he'd even manage to beat Naruto. And _again _with the training… but…. a part of me understood, now, at least, that his love of training and his dream were somehow interlinked.

"But, Lee…" Why couldn't I… be like that? My chest started to swell as the bases of my eyes nipped my ego, and I wished I could take my recessive voice and strangle it into a life of self-confidence and energy. "You already _are_ amazing. You… you were number one, right? You're the strongest…" The funniest part was, I actually thought I was right.

Lee, still punching and kicking the air, barely noticed the sincerity in my voice. Even so, when he suddenly came to a halt in mid air, turning into a tomato and blushing at me with one foot extended, I would never _dare _to imagine the possibilities of what he could say next.

"Actually… I'm number twenty. Everyone else left is stronger than me."

It's truly amazing, in my opinion, how a carefree, twelve-year-old girl, who had just learned happiness for one of the first times in her life… could become the locked up, metal safe that she had always been in her heart within a few little surprises.

_Twenty. _The blood in my ears hissed at me, finally tightening their hold on me again, and I whimpered against them. _This monster is weak. _How could I… forget? _There are stronger Shinobi than him that are only thirteen, and they've been living right under my nose. _

I was a spec. A camouflaged, insignificant spec on a shirt, getting tossed around in a washing machine in a Laundromat in a city full of Laundromats on a planet full of cities. No one would care if I stayed, or disintegrated because of some stronger force- and, after seeing this, my fate just mapped itself out in front of me.

I wouldn't be part of Lee's "_everyone else _left_." _

This was what I got, wasn't it? For opening up to someone who didn't have any idea about my password; what If I _died _for this? Naruto… I could open to Naruto. But this boy, the weakest Genin of his year… decided to learn my name and face, and suddenly… what? We were… friends?

No. I didn't have friends. I had abandoned that concept forever ago. Safes were built to stay shut, and live on as nothing but tools. So, I would be a tool; an entirely useless method of defense, to save Naruto when the time was right. I would build my job around that… because I needed to be needed. There was nothing else to it.

A bell wrung in the distance, and I had barely registered what that meant before Lee gazed at me with question alight in his eyes.

_She's pale… _Lee's thoughts crashed into my mind again, splattering my walls of self defense down. I never thought it would kill me so much hearing thoughts after they had cut off from me, but a pang of sourness rushed through my skull, and I had to drop my head to keep myself from screaming while Lee kept mentally whispering his gathered information to himself. _And now her head is hanging, but she is still conscious and balanced… her information said that she was anorexic and asthmatic, so that could be… _

Suddenly, the light-hearted emptiness had all but vanished.

He memorized my _information_. Anemic and asthmatic? That wasn't even _true. _What lowlife son of a bitch had the time on their hands to sit down and give enough fucks to make up some bullshit about an irrelevant little girl that they didn't even care about? I wasn't anorexic; I was just never _hungry._ I wasn't _asthmatic, _I was just a _wimp_. After a second, it struck me that I should've been heading back, and my nostrils flared so wide I could've stuck an entire kunai through one and poked my brain before cutting myself.

"Lee…" When my voice erupted in an even gust, a sudden calm washed over me. This was futile dream boy; I could tolerate him, and he had done the exact _opposite _of trying to hurt me. So, this was no supercilious, heavily mysterious Sasuke; nor was it an overly-loquacious, hormonally-active Sakura. Here stood the happy medium, which I was ecstatic to discover at all. Did I really want to yell at him? I didn't even know if I had it in me.

"Go, Chiasa-san!" He buffed out his chest and sucked in his lower lip, clenching his teeth and looking as though, for whatever reason, tears were swimming behind his eyes.

Alright, so maybe a happy medium was a bit of a stretch.

"Duty and youth call!" He held his fist to his heart, beaming at the sky behind me with a contorted passion scrawled across his face. _Duty and youth… _Somehow, I got the feeling that he didn't come up with that. And then- what do you know- a stream of tears raced each other down his face, trying not to tumble into each other and collapse at once.

_What a weirdo. _And I still liked him! I, who hated _everything_, who took it upon herself to _literally hate everything_… couldn't hate this messed up kid. I couldn't even muster up the strength to _dislike _him.

"Bye, Lee." I didn't spit ice at him, but I didn't puke a rainbow on his face. I threw my feelings out there, and left him to interpret them how he wanted. However, though it went against absolutely everything I stood for, I still knew, deep down- and I tried not to lie to myself- that what I really wanted to know tasted funny in my thought stream, and didn't deepen as far as it seemed.

_Will I ever see you again? _

_"Dreams are like thumbprints, Chiasa." _That was it. That, among everything else she'd spat at me, slurred as one of the _only _things I directly remembered her saying. Maybe _that _was the specific something that had hung over my tongue that morning; I'd probably never know. But its ring, its voice… not _Yang's _voice, but the voice of the phrase… just seemed to have so much meaning.

The bark stuttered beneath my feet as I briefly skimmed each branch, letting the backwind conceal my thoughts from any _other _surprises I was bound to come across in this forest. Tree hopping… what I wouldn't do without it.

But the statement… the statement still drowned out the sound, and I had to scrutinize it even more. Its meaning… I didn't know if it was true or not, but it just _stood out_. I'd assumed that it was just one of those things that came with a premonition, but… What the hell was it supposed to _mean_? A dream… Lee held so much _confidence _when he boasted about his own. Why did he bother with it? Naruto, too… why did he _want _to be Hokage?

To be acknowledged. So? Is that what a dream was, then? Craving something out of possession? Because if that was the case… that was just false hope. Wasn't it? _My dream is to un-pathetic myself. _

Ironically, that would probably get me beaten up, stepped on, and crushed, causing me to crumble in self-hatred and ultimately make myself _more_ pathetic.

"Fuck everything." I muttered.

Really. I was losing it _all_. Not that I had _"it" _to begin with… but I wasn't even sure what I should be filling my head with. I wasn't even trapped inside a cage anymore. I couldn't be my own chains, because I was being possessed by a _rock. _Alone, in silence, with no where to move.

A rock.

Inside a rock, there was only more rock. More solid, stony nothingness, with no purpose but to simply take up space. No conviction, no dreams.

So was that it, then? Did I not _have _any dreams now?

No immediate opinion formulated off the top of my head. No snide insult of pure hatred came to my lips; I was just robotic for a while. Is this what being calm did to me? Did it obliterate any sense I had of being myself?

That would have been sad. I nearly felt my eyes swell in the midst of moist frustration- however, who better to count on to remind me who I was than my dearest teammates? Sakura Haruno... was just about to verbally stab me. I halted brusquely, just outside the ugliest scene I would ever have to witness.

Ever.

And that was coming from a _murder witness. _A future _murderer. _A victim of things that I couldn't even _begin _to wrap my mind around when I was twelve.

Really, she just shined exquisitely.

At first, by some demented alteration of my mind, the first emotion that struck me when I heard the recent events play out in her head was this warming sensation steeling my chest. _Pity. _Pity! Naruto, admittedly, was usually an idiot. He had definitely crossed the line; and, as I looked at her, lying there with her hair matted in a pool of tears, sobbing maniacally on the floor, I couldn't help it. Having met Lee, a part of me wanted to believe that maybe… _maybe _people weren't as bad as I'd always pictured. Maybe certain people _were _good, and I just hadn't given them their chance.

Well, I was wrong.

She lay there, pathetically unaware of my unsure presence for so long that I'd forgotten I was there myself. The only things that stirred the both of us were his footsteps, and even then, I only felt more of an urge to run.

Her body stiffened at once, as if his arrival dictated her entire being, and a series of emotions clashed on her face. _Is that…? _Her eyes widened, and her lips parted. Hope. _No… wait… that bastard- it must be…! _Her brows pulled together, scrunching up her entire forehead, and her heart rate soared through the roof. Anger. _But… it really feels like _him_… _She dropped her gaze, calming slightly. Doubt.

He stopped right in front of me, ten yards away, and I caught my breath as he pulled me down to my own body.

_Shit. _Should I help her? Should I save myself? _I should probably… watch. _

_Chiasa's watching… _He looked obnoxiously forward, unmoving, away from both of us for a few seconds, and an utterly record-breaking fire erupted through every cell in my body. Who did he think he was? I didn't care. I didn't care who he was. He nearly killed me. I didn't care.

"Are you… _Really Sasuke?_" Her voice was so alien, so crushed and incredulous, that I almost stopped worrying about Sasuke and focused on the sheer amazement of Sakura sounding like an actual human being. Sasuke, in answer, just turned his eyes on her and let her shrink under the pounding pressure of his glare. It seemed to double back for me through the back of his head, as he probably intended it to do if he was planning on attacking me next… but she just nodded for a minute.

"Well, in _that _case..." Her smile was suddenly plastic-surgery level fake, and she let the sun glitter off her hair like she'd never been vandalized by my brother. "It's so _exciting _that we're on the same-"

"Sakura." He morphed her name into a common noun, voicing it almost factually. _Why didn't he say _my _name like that? _He was planning something. I knew it! I knew… I knew…! She stopped mid-smile, innocently widened her eyes, and cocked her head obnoxiously to the side.

_My teammates_. _Both of them_. _My _teammates.

"Huh?" She squeaked. _Look at him, trying to be so cool_… was he trying to give her _Goosebumps_? He secretly _loved _all the attention he got, didn't he? I tried to ignore my shuddering body as I pressed forward to hear more.

"Where's Naruto?" His eyes stared into the distance like a Hawk's, disregarding Sakura's flirtatious body language all together. He darted his head both ways across his throat… And I realized, with absolutely no strength, the inevitable truth.

I was going to have to protect Naruto from him, because he could kill Naruto otherwise. And I was a tool, wasn't I? I'd already decided that. It could very well lead to another fight between the two of us.

I had no idea how right I was.

"N-Naruto?" Her smile was back, but her lips curled around his name in a grimace, trying to hold back her long, horrible rant that I'd probably end up killing her for.

_Shit! I don't _know _where it went… I have to keep him here! I have to…! If I talk about him and open up a conversation…!_ "Don't bother yourself with _him_, Sasuke. He's obnoxious and not worth it and… He just wasn't raised right. You know, right? _Everyone _knows. That annoying, lucky little bitch doesn't even have _parents!_"

Lucky.

She said lucky.

Nothing about me knew how to react to that; I didn't know whether I should freeze, explode, or just run away and cry. Of course, I was a masochistic idiot, so I rooted my sandals in the branch beneath me.

Sasuke's gaze suddenly turned sharp, and he stopped obnoxiously ignoring her to shoot her a warning look. _Damn it, Sakura… take the hint. Take the fucking hint_, I begged her. What was I _thinking_? Feeling sorry for her… thinking she wasn't that bad…. I couldn't believe myself.

_It's working…! I need to… I need to keep talking and… and stall him… _Was she… stupid?

"That's why he can just do whatever the hell he wants!" She was practically laughing to mask the memory replaying in her head; at some point in her speech, my legs gave way and I had to squat with my head dangling to keep the mind to hear the rest.

_I… hate little kids. _Even that Konohamaru brat was more grown up than_ this_. She… she had the worst possible priorities, knew _nothing _about getting hurt… her biggest concern was probably her forehead- or… what _Sasuke _thought of her forehead, anyway... It… was people like this that I couldn't stand looking at. She didn't know what it was like to be a scavenger; a survivor. My body lurched forward with a scream that caught in my throat, and I had to suck in to keep from falling twenty feet.

_Just a little more… just… just a little bit… _She was milking the fact that Naruto was an orphan. She was taking its utters, wrapping her fists around the nipples, and just squeezing like it was that simple.

"He's got no one to reprimand him! I wish _I _had that… my parents would _kill me _if I did _any_ of the thingshe did! He's just _selfish!_" No. _No. _I bit my lip, shaking my head. As the wind blew by me, yanking the leaves off the tree above me, I hated her. I hated her smile, I hated her laugh, I hated her stupid pinkness, I hated her. She didn't know. She didn't know the pain of having no one. She didn't know that inescapable hole that, no matter how many sympathetic eyes turned towards or away from her, never seemed to go away, because no one _really _cared. She didn't understand…

"The loneliness." Sasuke spat, faster than my mental rant. I gasped, snapping my eyes to him through the hair dangling over my face. _Did he just… hear _my _thoughts, somehow? _No… that wasn't it. He said it off his own accord; that same pain… I could feel it coming from him. That insufferable, awful…

_My_ pain.

"Huh?" She… I clutched the branch beneath me. _Am I… shaking? _The breeze chilled as it wiped my skin, but I trembled internally- I couldn't tell if Sakura was shivering, too, because she had suddenly turned into a blob of light pink nothingness, and…

_Oh. _I was crying. Of course I was. These, though… these were _real _tears. They stung my eyes with hatred, taking my emotions prisoner; they stripped me of my identity, leaving me with nothing but the wetness streaming down my face. _Nothing… I really am… nothing. _They could see me just as well as I could see them at that point; I had to close my eyes to get the blurriness off my mind.

"It's worse. It's _so much_ worse." Sasuke's voice snarled somewhere, like he was also... All attempts at being cool were gone from his verbal disposition in an instant, and I could hear feet shuffling, not getting any louder or fainter.

"S-Sasuke… what are you…?" Her inevitable whisper was squelched by the horrible gleam he gave her, burning a hole in her mind.

"You… piss me off."

And he was gone.

SAKURA

_I… piss him off? _Everything I'd worked for to get there was just a… _waste. _My feet, trotting meaninglessly back to the school at their own, idle pace, stood in their own bliss until I nearly smacked into the door. Why did he have to take my heart and throw it? Why couldn't he just _want _me? It wasn't fair! He was wrong about me, and he wouldn't even take the time to…!

_Is this… what I do to Naruto_? I don't know why I thought it, or why I cared, but the truth chastised me and threateningly put a stop to my thoughts about Sasuke. (Only temporarily of course, because… I mean, who can stop thinking about _Sasuke_?)

But Naruto… my forehead pounded as I made my way to the door of the classroom. Naruto was still selfish, lucky, and unappreciative. He didn't _deserve _my kindness… especially not after he…! I shook my head; now was not the time.

I'd be nice to Chiasa. I could handle being nice to Chiasa. That would make up for being horrible to Naruto; I'd never say another horrible thing to Chiasa Uzumaki again. The two of us… could be friends, right?

Well… on the outside.

CHIASA

The fiery numbness still hadn't subsided by the time I saw her again. And, at that point… right before I could take my place beside Naruto, relax, and sit until our "Sensei" came, I'd wished she'd have just sat down. But the moment I saw her, my stomach rolled, a sample of vomit circulated between my cheeks, and I knew it. I _knew _it. It was inevitable, just like life and death, darkness and light, and solitude.

I was about to lose every last shred of self-respect I'd built up over the past five years to myself amongst all these other people.

I walked past her with my jaw set, breathing as steadily as I could manage as I tried to slip into the classroom. _Just ignore her… _Maybe I could keep that; maybe she'd gift me my identity for a day. What reason did she have to make a comment, anyway? She didn't know me, and she didn't like me. The feelings were mutual. My hands started shaking by my sides, and I felt a vein slowly clarify itself on my forehead.

"Hey there, Chiasa." Her voice was light- friendly, even. I might've actually been flattered, if I couldn't hear what she was thinking. I stopped trying to creep past, but I didn't turn and look at her.

She didn't deserve the pleasure.

_Little…! Insignificant, immature… _Those were mine. _Just a stretch away_… I could stare into the room from here. I was so close… I sighed, and turned to meet her eyes. _Here we go. _For once in my life, I'd stoop to her level. I'd see how things went if I could _be _that petty; would I understand her better? I'd still have to be a _little _reasonable, but…

"You… are an ungrateful little girl. Do you know that?" She was a good three inches taller than me, but I was the one looking down on _her_. I _had _to be. She could never be better than me, no matter how strong she got and no matter how weak I stayed. She didn't understand a single thing; her life was a fairy tale. She didn't even know that she'd done anything _wrong, _yet her friendly attempt disintegrated at my jeer, and she was ready to attack without realizing how her own little tirade had stabbed me a thousand times not even ten minutes prior.

"_I'm_ a little girl?" She snorted, taking a step closer to me. Perfume assaulted my nostrils as she asserted her relatively impressive height, forcing my breath to cut itself off. _Despicable. _"You're not in any position to say that." I folded my arms across my chest and stood erect, not daring to back away.

I was not afraid of Sakura. I could not be afraid of Sakura. _Find something to say, idiot! _

"I'm older than you." _Don't blush, oh God don't blush. _I could already hear my pulse. Could she feel how shaky I was, or was I overreacting? But what if I _wasn't_? So… maybe I was being immature. Right? Maybe she didn't deserve this- I'd never really know. I just... couldn't _help _myself. Whenever I saw her face, I felt like my insides were crumpling together and heating up, ready to betray me while they melted her not clever, easily debatable come backs to ashes.

"You can't tell _that_ by looking at us, curly." I didn't even notice the ringlet dangling in front of my eye until my hand flew to my hair and brushed it behind my shoulders. _Curly? _She was going for appearances now; that was the usual, I supposed. I grabbed the fabric on the side of my pants, and forced my pupils into hers. _Stand straight. Don't bite your lip. _Don't. This was child's play, because she was still a child, and I was just playing with her. Just toying…

Just getting my freaking revenge.

I had always dreamed about the ironic day when Sakura Haruno would make fun of someone else's hair.

"Oh, yeah?" I couldn't even open my mouth as I talked to her. If it wasn't so cowardly, I would've obscured my face from her scathing smile; it didn't deserve to see me. The sounds I made were just hisses through my teeth_. Why am I even talking to you? _Why was I even talking to her? Even me… a dirty street rat… could be preserved from something like _her._ I went for the door again, leaving it in my shadow.

That's right.

As I looked in the room, though, and saw Naruto and Sasuke both sitting at opposite ends of a table, sulking, I stopped in the entrance's archway.

"You can tell it by talking to us." And I walked inside.

When I was about halfway through the room, so _overjoyed _that no one had seen me make an idiot of myself with a tomato for a face, a chilly and soft hand grabbed my shoulder and pushed, whirling me around to face her. _Oh, shit. _

It was Sakura again, obviously.

A sour taste reverberated in my mouth as she stood over me, looking down into my eyes like I was her annoying little sister. _How dare you_? No, I really… I took a deep breath, nodding subtly, ignoring the constantly growing number of watching eyes… I still wasn't afraid of her. Why did she deserve my _fear_? She just stood there and smiled, casually making fun of orphans to get a _boyfriend_. What was so fearsome about _that_? Nearly dying was scary. Bright lights were scary. Bugs were scary.

Disoriented bitches were not scary.

"Don't make fun of me." Her voice was surprisingly dark and menacing as she _snarled _at me._ What a commendable line of self-defense._ I raised my eyebrow at her, trying to force my smile back.

"At least I don't look like I'm wearing a pimple on my head."

It didn't work.

I just started laughing, letting it flow out of me like a song. When it started softly, she just flared her nostrils a bit, but as I got faster and louder, the whole classroom fell silent and watched us. After all, things like these were usually the best entertainment around here; none of this surprised me.

_Is that… _Chiasa_? And… _Sakura_? Aren't they a team now? _We'd get sent back to the academy within the first five minutes, so… in other words, I had nothing to lose._ She_ had grabbed me by the neck of my shirt, easily pulled our noses to touch, and I was dying by the time she started glowing.

"Oh, I'm sorry! Did I hurt your _feelings_?" For the smartest girl in the class, one would think she would understand the hint behind my emphasis. Of course, she was too busy thinking about _other_ things… "You're long, flowing pink hair is_ beautiful_, Sakura! Would you like me to ask _Sasuke_ if he _likes_ it for you?" Her jaw dropped, and everyone in the class just stared at me in this stunned silence.

_What a bunch of idiots… _Amaya was trying not to be entertained while everyone else just stared at me, appalled. Of course, _I_ was the bad guy now. Then again, I had always really been the bad guy in their eyes.

_Nothing to lose, right? _I pushed my mouth to an unfamiliar smirk.

"Y-you…" She was biting her lip, letting the tears stream out of her eyes. I was laughing so hard that I started getting stomach cramps. _I… I have to say something! This bitch… she… she _can't _win! She _can't!

Oh, was I winning?

"I-I'm sure he_ hates_ yours! You're so _ugly_ and annoying, Chiasa! Who in their right mind would _ever_ like _you?!_" She couldn't even look me in the eyes as she said it; she just stared at the floor with her face on fire. I have to say, it matched her hair nicely. _Weak… _I didn't need anyone to _like _me. I could manage to be a _living being _without having anyone _like _me. _Child… child… you're a child… _

_God, I don't think I'll ever understand women… _Shikamaru sunk in his chair next to Ino. By that point, I was done with the entire thing,

"I don't _give a shit!_" I actually started crying, too- this was the funniest thing I'd witnessed all day; really, she put me in a much nicer mood than I had been five minutes before. Sure, she had called me ugly and annoying, but what was that coming from her? Why the hell should _I_ care? "If you haven't noticed, I hate all of you!" She must've known that; all I did was glare at these lowlife, blind little bastards until the final bell rang and I went home and sulked. "Screw Sasuke! He can think whatever the hell he _wants_!" I stood up a little straighter, making sure that everyone could hear me as I grinned in Sakura's face and screamed it: "Sasuke is an arrogant, overrated bastard. Oh no, it's number one rookie Sasuke! He's so scary! He's so _hot_! Put me down… b-bitch." Her eyes bulged and her lips parted in disbelief as her hold on my shirt fell limp.

_That's right… _what had I been worried about before? _No… reason to be afraid of Sakura. _My adrenaline and steadily increasing breaths begged to differ, but I masked the shaking of my legs as I reclaimed control of my movement.

_Oh_ no! _Someone's telling the _truth! I turned away from her and started to walk towards my desk, trying to keep myself from exploding into a thousand fiery pieces.

I might have gone over the top in this next part… but she deserved it, I promise.

She grabbed onto me by the collar of my shirt and spun me around to face her. She was still disgruntled and breathless, but she wasn't done with me yet. I folded my arms over my chest, waiting.

"You…" Here was the build up- now I just had to wait for her to spill over. _I can't let Sasuke think I agree with this… monster! _Oh, great. Now she was on the defense. "You don't _ever_ say _anything_ about Sasuke ever again! You don't even deserve to be here! You're_ weak_ and _pathetic_ and _scrawny_ and barely tall enough to make eye contact with my _belly button!_ Shut up! There must've been a misprint, because there is no way in _hell _you could _ever _be number five!" The best thing was, Sasuke wouldn't even acknowledge that this ever happened. The fact that Sakura was standing up for him didn't affect him at all- He'd just keep being himself, going about his business like Billboard Brow, Sakura Haruno didn't even exist.

But she got me. My heart clenched, sending automatic, watery jolts to my eyes. The words were each separate blows to my chest, hurting more the longer the time past and the numbness went away.

_I didn't ask for any of it. _So, trying to keep my fingers flattened out, I thought of the most petty thing I could say to a twelve year old girl that would probably ruin any shot at being any team that we'd ever muster up.

"And yet, I _still_ have bigger boobs than you." I barely even felt the guilt flood through me as I turned around for the last time, picturing Sasuke's surprisingly pained face from just ten minutes before, and feeling absolutely nothing.


End file.
